Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for www.bucksfire.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to the website www.bucksfire.gov.uk, which is run by Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.

How you should be able to use this website

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. You should be able to:

change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We also make the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

many documents are in PDF format and are not accessible.

We have an accessibility roadmap – a list of tasks we are working through to improve accessibility.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, or audio recording, please contact us:

Online: Complete our contact us form

By email: enquiries@bucksfire.gov.uk

By phone: 01296 744400 between 8.30am and 4.30pm Monday to Thursday, and between 8.30am and 4pm on Fridays.

Or you can write to us at Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Stocklake, Aylesbury, HP20 1BD.

We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within 20 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, you can contact us in a number of ways:

Online: Complete our contact us form

By email: enquiries@bucksfire.gov.uk

By phone: 01296 744400 between 8.30am and 4.30pm Monday to Thursday, and between 8.30am and 4pm on Fridays.

Or you can write to us at Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Stocklake, Aylesbury, HP20 1BD.

Full details of our complaints policy can be found on our complaints policy.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We are currently looking into how we can make accessibility easier for people contacting us by phone or in person.

If you are planning to visit us and have a specific need or accessibility requirement, please let us know and we will seek ways to put appropriate arrangements in place.

You can contact us:

By email: enquiries@bucksfire.gov.uk

By phone: 01296 744400 between 8.30am and 4.30pm Monday to Thursday, and between 8.30am and 4pm on Fridays.

Or you can write to us at Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Stocklake, Aylesbury, HP20 1BD.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Most older PDF documents (up until September 2024) are not fully accessible to screen reader software.

PDFs and Documents
Many documents are in non-HTML formats, such as PDFs, and are not accessible in several ways. For example:

They may lack text alternatives for images.
They may not be structured to allow screen readers to navigate them properly.
Tables may not have correct row or column headers.

This fails WCAG 2.1 success criteria:

1.1.1 (Non-Text Content)
1.3.1 (Info and Relationships)

You can report any problems or request documents in an alternative format using our online contact us form.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix Fire Authority papers for meetings which took place before 23 September 2018.

We have compiled an accessibility roadmap which shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

Disproportionate Burden

We are committed to balancing our legal obligations to make data publicly available with the need to improve accessibility for all users, focusing on long-term solutions. After assessing the resources required to make all existing PDFs accessible or to produce fully accessible HTML alternatives, and the costs of attempting to do so to Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service compared to the benefits to us and to users of our website, we have determined that addressing the entire volume of documents would impose a disproportionate burden on us due to our size and current technical capacity.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Many of our PDFs are essential for providing information about our services, such as meeting papers and financial reports. To enhance accessibility, we are implementing the following actions:

New PDFs: We will ensure all new PDFs published after September 2024 meet accessibility standards wherever possible.
Financial Accountability (FA) Papers: FA papers will no longer be hosted on our website; instead, we will provide links to the partner website that prepares and hosts these documents.
Annual Reports: We will design accessible HTML pages for our 2025/2026 annual reports.
Document Templates: We are reviewing our document templates as part of the 2025/2026 annual plan to ensure they support accessible content creation.
Content Author Training: We are updating training and guidance for content authors to ensure future documents are produced in an accessible way.
Accessibility Standard: As part of our 2025/2026 initiatives, we will develop and implement a comprehensive Accessibility Standard to guide content creation, design, and publishing practices across our platforms.

In the meantime, if you need a specific document in an accessible format, please contact us, and we will make every effort to provide the content in a suitable alternative format.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 13 September 2024 following an audit in July 2024 by Government Digital Services, and a subsequent assessment by our website development company, Weaving Webs ltd.

This website was last tested on 13 September 2024. The test was carried out on our behalf by Weaving Webs ltd.

This statement was last reviewed on 20 December 2024.

You can read the full accessibility test report and issues identified during alongside our roadmap for fixing them, within our accessibility roadmap.

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Accessibility Statement