What this statement covers

This accessibility statement covers content available on the National Audit Office main site as required by the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The statement is applicable to the National Audit Office website www.nao.org.uk. This website is run by the National Audit Office.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website. 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 is our website

The website is heavily text based and most content is fully accessible.

Some content is not fully accessible:

  • Some of our 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
  • Our embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos do not have audio descriptions and some video controls do not have sufficient colour contrast
  • Our job application system is not fully accessible to assistive technologies

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), please contact us.

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.

Please include a link to the page with the problem 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 using our contact form, by phone or email:

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

Read our office accessibility guides for more information about access at our offices.

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 2.2. This is in line with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

To help us achieve and maintain our objective we have commissioned Sitemorse to carry out automated testing and Test Partners to carry out our latest WCAG 2.2 AA level technical compliance audit, including testing by users with a range of disabilities.

We selected the sample of pages to test based on typical examples of our website templates.

Our last audit was in February 2024.

Compliance status

Our website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 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 (our PDF reports are tagged for logical reading order, document language, document title, bookmarks, colour contrast, tab order, accessible links, headings structure, alternative text, and table structure but:

  • Most charts and graphics in our reports have the figure title and subheading as alternative text. This is being reviewed. Some reports contain charts and graphs that lack alternative text (WCAG 2.2  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 2.2 1.3.1 Info & relationships)
  • Most charts and graphs use colour (WCAG 2.2  1.4.1 Use of Color). These colours have been checked for accessibility for users with both protanopia and deuteranopia colour blindness and data can also be distinguished in greyscale.
  • Other documents that we publish as PDFs, such as Board minutes, are not fully accessible.

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 2.2  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.

Search results

Our search results page is accessible. However, our accessibility audit identified an area for improvement:

  • Ellipses in search results look like buttons but provide no functionality on a mouse click.

Images

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

Interactive graphics colour

Some interactive graphical data visualisations use colour in graphs and charts (WCAG 2.2  1.4.1 Use of Color).

YouTube and Vimeo hosted videos

Our videos do not have audio description (WCAG 2.2 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded)).

Vacancy notices and applications

Accessibility issues in our vacancy notices and application system make it difficult to use with assistive technologies. To mitigate any issues, applications can be emailed directly to our recruitment team, bypassing the application system.

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

PDFs and other documents

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 older PDF reports.

YouTube hosted videos

Some videos on our site are embedded from the YouTube platform and include non-accessible elements. Issues related to the media player are exempt from the Regulations as the media player is not under the control of the NAO.

Contact form

Our contact form uses a plugin called Gravity Forms. It is mostly accessible but there is a problem with the invalid file type error message, which should be presented to users by assistive technologies without receiving focus. This is exempt from the Regulations as the plugin is not under the control of the NAO.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

PDF documents

We are investigating using additional visual elements as well as colour to communicate information, such as patterns.

We are currently investigating if it is feasible to produce HTML versions of our reports. We will update this statement when those investigations are complete.

Our PDF reports are mostly accessible but other PDFs are not, for example Board minutes. By winter 2024/25, all new PDFs added to the website will be accessible.

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of a PDF in a more accessible format, or any figures in a different format, please contact us.

Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

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 visualisations, please use the contact details in this page to request help and we will provide someone to assist

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.

Search results

We are currently investigating a fix for the issue outlined above, and aim to implement this by the end of 2024-25.

Videos

We have reviewed our video production process to ensure new videos meet Level AA.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 12 March 2025.

Accessibility reports

Previous accessibility reports applied to a different version of this website.