What this statement covers This accessibility statement covers content available on the National Audit Office main site and on our graduate recruitment site as required by the The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. The statement is applicable to the National Audit Office websites www.nao.org.uk and naoaccountancyscheme.co.uk. These websites are […]
September 22, 2020
What this statement covers
This accessibility statement covers content available on the National Audit Office main site and on our graduate recruitment site as required by the The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
The statement is applicable to the National Audit Office websites www.nao.org.uk and naoaccountancyscheme.co.uk. These websites are run by the National Audit Office.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use our websites. For example, that means you should be able to:
- Zoom in and out 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 and NVDA)
- We’ve also made the website text as simple as we can to understand (given the technical nature of the content).
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible are our websites
The websites are heavily text based and most content is fully accessible.
Some content is not fully accessible:
- Some of our report PDFs are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- Some interactive graphical data visualisations have options that rely on mouse clicks, and are not accessible using only the keyboard
- Some interactive graphical data visualisations use colour in graphs and charts
There are some parts of our website that are in the process of being independently tested. We will update this statement once that testing is completed.
See the technical section below for a more comprehensive description and details of mitigations and adjustments we have made.
Feedback and contact information
If you need assistance with the information on this website (such as help with or more explanation of our interactive content), then either
- Email enquiries@nao.org.uk
- Call 020 7798 7000 (and ask to be put through to Enquiries)
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, please contact us and we will put it right.
- Email enquiries@nao.org.uk
- Call 020 7798 7000 (ask to be put through to Enquiries)
Include a link to the problem page and a brief description of the issue.
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
You can contact us by phone or email:
- Email enquiries@nao.org.uk
- Call 020 7798 7000 (and ask to be put through to Enquiries)
or through our website contact form at https://www.nao.org.uk/contact-us/contact-us/
If you make an appointment to visit our buildings, we provide:
- Wheelchair access to meeting rooms
- Accessible toilets
- Use of our car park for people with accessibility needs by appointment
For additional needs, we may be able to make special arrangements by appointment.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The National Audit Office is committed to making sure our online services are accessible to all users and comply with level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – WCAG 2.1, in line with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
In order to help us achieve and maintain our objective we have commissioned The Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) to carry out WCAG 2.1 AA level technical compliance audits, that will also include extensive testing by users with a wide range of disabilities.
Our last audit was 30 July 2020.
Our future audits are scheduled as follows:
October 2020:
- Our job vacancy pages (provided by a third-party service, Financial Force).
- New data visualisation pages
We selected the sample of pages to test based on typical examples of our website templates and third-party services.
Compliance status
Our websites are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard due to the non-compliances listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
PDF documents
We currently publish our reports in PDF format. These are mostly accessible, but:
- some reports published before August 2020 contain charts and graphs that lack alternative text (WCAG 2.1 1.1.1 Non-text Content) or have inconsistent metadata tagging that makes it difficult for someone using a screen reader to navigate them (WCAG 2.1 1.3.1 Info & relationships)
- some charts and graphs use colour (WCAG 2.1 1.4.1 Use of Color).
Interactive graphics navigation
Some of our interactive data visualisations are based on third-party tools and are difficult to fully navigate using a keyboard (WCAG 2.1 2.11 Keyboard). The main navigation and options selection are fully keyboard accessible, but some visualisations allow you to interact with the graphs directly by clicking on different sections with a mouse to access more detailed data.
Interactive graphics colour
Some interactive graphical data visualisations use colour in graphs and charts (WCAG 2.1 1.4.1 Use of Color).
YouTube hosted videos
A small number of videos on our site are embedded from the YouTube platform. These are exempt from the Regulations as the embedding code is not under the control of the NAO.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
PDF documents
We provide the data for charts and graphs that use colour in a separate document that contains a text version for all reports since August 2020.
We are currently adding these documents and fixing inconsistent or missing metadata for reports going back to September 2018, prioritising those reports which are downloaded the most. We plan to complete this work by the end of 2021.
If you need more help accessing the information in our PDFs, please use the contact details in this page to request help and we will provide someone to assist.
We are planning to develop HTML versions of our reports by the end of 2021.
Interactive data visualisations
To mitigate issues with the accessibility of interactive data visualisations, we:
- provide CSV files of the raw data behind our visualisations. These can be downloaded into an accessible technology of choice and analysed
- provide one-to-one remote assistance. If you need help using our interactives, please use the contact details in this page to request help and we will provide someone to assist
- We are working with third-party suppliers to understand their latest accessibility techniques and encourage them to develop their software to be more accessible
We will provide data in colour coded charts and graphs in an alternative tabular text format. We will also provide the data in an accessible format on request. We have a long term project underway to provide reports in HTML format.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22 September 2020.
You can read our initial accessibility test report from February 2019, and our updated audit from July 2020.