Accessibility statement

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This accessibility statement applies to www.scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk.

We want 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% 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.

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

• some documents have poor colour contrast
• some tables do not have row headings
• some heading elements are not consistent
• some images do not have image descriptions
• some content cannot be accessed using assistive technology
• some features are inaccessible to some users as they do not work with keyboard shortcuts
• some documents are in PDF format and are not accessible.

If you need information on this website in a different format like large print, word document (.docx), rich text (.rtf) or text (.txt) or an audio recording, you can contact us.

If there is another format you would prefer, ask us – we may be able to provide it. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 3 days.

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.

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 feedback, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

• Some dropdown menus cannot be accessed using the keyboard, so will be inaccessible to some users. This fails WCAG 2.1.1 (keyboard).
• At some magnifications the focus is not visible to help users know which element has keyboard focus and where they are on the page. This fails WCAG 2.4.7 (focus visible).
• Some text will not reflow in a single column to help users who are viewing the page on a mobile device. This fails WCAG 1.1.10 (reflow).
• Some content appears when hovering over the navigation bar dropdown menus, and cannot be dismissed without changing the hover, which can be confusing. This fails WCAG 1.4.13 (content on hover or focus).
• Zooming is disabled for mobile devices, making it harder for users with sight loss to read text. This fails WCAG 1.4.4 (resize text).
• Some PDFs have insufficient colour contrast, which makes it difficult for someone with sight loss to see the content properly. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 (contrast, minimum).
• Some PDFs do not have a title within the document settings that describes the topic or purpose of the page to help users understand the topic without having to read the entire document. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 (page titled).
• Some images within PDFs do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 1.1.1 (non-text content).
• Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

We are working to address the above issues. When we publish new content, we’ll make sure it meets accessibility standards.

Content that is 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 Annual Reports from previous years.

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

The statement was prepared in February 2022. The test was carried out in January 2022 by Passion4Social CIC (third-party), not involved in the design and development process.

We used this approach to test:

• Automated tests: We used 3 software tools to identify accessibility and navigation issues across the entire website
• Using Google Analytics, we selected the pages most accessed by the users in the previous month and added then to the manual testing
• Manual tests: performed by three people with disabilities (blindness, other vision impairment and hard of hearing, and motor disabilities) and one professional web developer that run 3 simulation tools for dyslexia, low or partial vision, colour blindness, trembling movements, and keyboard navigation.

The website was also tested by the Government Digital Service on 14 September 2023. This statement was last reviewed and updated on 20 December 2023.