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Accessibility

Accessibility statement for https://bucksfire.gov.uk

This website is run by Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.

Our aim is for as many people as possible to be able to use this website.

For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts.
  • Zoom in up to 300 per cent without the text spilling off the screen.
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard.
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software.
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

We’ve also made 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

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. We have an accessibility roadmap – a list of tasks we are working through to improve accessibility.

Below are the remaining issues as of 9 December 2022.
For the full list, (and for which completed tasks are subject to checking), see ‘What we’re doing to improve accessibility‘:

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
    • We plan to review our website in 2023/24, and part of this review will include all existing content. We are aware that older PDF’s will not meet WCAG 2.5 PDF Accessibility standards, however we aim to address this by identifying and resolving any outstanding issues following the website review and aim to complete this by 31 December 2023. Any new PDFs added to our website will be compliant with accessibility requirements, and we will also investigate ways to avoid using PDF’s wherever possible.  
  • Register for event form:
    • Register for event is a link but its behaviour is that of a button. As this is part of a plugin, it can’t be changed, but we are looking to move to a new plugin by 31 December 2023.
  • Videos may not have captions.
    • We will aim to include captions on any new videos from this date (9/12/22) forward.

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 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.

At BFRS we aim to respond to, and address, all suggestions, concerns and complaints as quickly as possible. It may be possible to resolve your concern immediately and if so, we will let you know. If it is not possible then an investigating officer will be allocated, and they will contact you to discuss the problem you have raised.

Full details of our complaints policy can be found at: bucksfire.gov.uk/authority/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 are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
At this point we are unable to identify which WCAG error/s any existing PDF’s fail on, However we plan to review our website in 2022/23, and part of this review will include all existing content.

We will aim to identify and resolve any outstanding issues following the website review. Any new PDFs added to our website will be compliant with accessibility requirements.

WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible:
Register for event is a link but its behaviour is that of a button. As this is part of a plugin, it can’t be changed, but we are looking to move to a new plugin by September 2023.

Videos may not have captions.
We will aim to include captions on any new videos from this date (9/12/22) forward.

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

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing information about our services. For example, we have PDFs containing information from meetings of the Combined Fire Authority and Fire Authority Committees, and PDFs outlining our financial and governance policies and strategies.

We plan to audit this content in 2023, to identify any elements that do not meet accessibility standards, and fix them, or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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.

Any new PDFs or other documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 24 November 2022. It was last reviewed on 9 December 2022.

This website was last tested on 14 November 2022. The test was carried out on our behalf by Maglabs Ltd.

You can read the full accessibility test report and issues identified during the 14 November 2022 test, and our roadmap for fixing them here.