This site uses a number of mechanisms to ensure that the content may be accessed in a convenient manner by the widest range of users. Specifically, this site has been designed to meet or exceed a number of legislative requirements for website accessibility and follows best practice guidelines of theW3Cand the Web Accessibility InitiativeWCAG 1.0.
The site is designed to validate to the W3C's XHTML 1.0 and CSS standards and should render well in any browser that supports these standards. In addition, site components are tested for conformance to WCAG 1.0 Double-A standard which exceeds UK government requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act and Section 508 requirements in the USA. Some parts of the site will meet the WCAG Triple-A rating but we do not make this claim for the entire site because there are certain discretionary recommendations within these Guidelines which we have found to be counterproductive to users in practice.
While we do take every care to ensure that this site remains accessible to all our users sometimes we don't always get it right. If you find any part of this site which either doesn't conform to the guidelines quoted above, or does conform and still poses a problem. If this is the case please let us know about it and we will attempt to correct the problem.
Access keys are combinations of a meta key and another keyboard character which together act as a shortcut to another part of the site or page. Most internet browser software uses the ALT key as the meta key; the Apple Macintosh uses the Control Key for this purpose.
Access keys have been assigned for all the links in the principal site navigation and links. The key combinations used follow UK government recommendations for standard key assignment so that it should be easier for users familiar with this scheme to navigate through the site. We have extended this scheme ourselves to cover those areas of the site which are not anticipated within the government recommendations. Key combinations in use on this site are:
| ALT key + | Action |
|---|---|
| S | Skip navigation |
| 0 | Accessibility statement (this page) |
| 1 | Home |
| 2 | What's New |
| 3 | Sitemap |
| 4 | Search |
| 5 | FAQ |
| 6 | Help |
| 7 | Complaints |
| 8 | Terms and Conditions |
| 9 | Contact/Feedback |
In addition the following site-specific combinations are in use although some of these combination may only be available to users once they have logged-in:
| ALT key + | Action |
|---|---|
| T | Toggle between "live" and "editing" mode |
| N | Next page |
| B | Back a page |
| L | Login/Logout |
| A | Administration |
| W | Page Watch |
| P | Print page |
| E | Email page |
