Accessibility statement

Updated 23/06/23

Contents

  1. Accessibility statement for the UK Money and Pensions Service
  2. Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
  3. Technical information about this website’s accessibility
  4. Non-accessible content
  5. What we’re doing to improve accessibility
  6. Preparation of this accessibility statement

© Crown copyright 2020

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third-party copyright information, you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://maps.org.uk/accessibility-statement/

Accessibility statement for the UK Money and Pensions Service website

This accessibility statement applies to the domain maps.org.uk.

This website is run by the Money and Pensions Service. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to do the following:

  • 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).
  • Access the site on smaller devices.

We’ve also made the website text as simple to understand as we can.

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:

  • You cannot use some parts of the site with a keyboard, for example the share links.
  • The menu does not work on mobile devices when the screen reader is on.
  • The site does not honour browser settings for font size.
  • Some videos have captions that have been automatically generated, and these may not match what is being said.
  • Some link names do not clearly convey where they lead.
  • Some content is provided in PDF (which may not be accessible) without an HTML alternative being provided.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or Braille, feel free to contact us:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within two days.

You can find more details on our contact us page.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that we haven’t listed on this page, or if you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, we’d love to hear from you. Please send us an email in which you describe the problem and tell us which page you were using when it happened. Send this email to accessiblity@maps.org.uk.

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).

Visiting us in person

Our offices are currently closed because of Covid-19 restrictions. Once we reopen, you will be welcome to contact us in advance, so that we can arrange reasonable accommodation for your visit. For example, you will be able to request a space with low lighting or low noise levels, or you can ask us to arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Money and Pensions 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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The menu cannot be used on a mobile device when the screen reader is on. This violates WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content, Level A). We will ensure that the menu works with a screen reader on mobile devices by 22/09/2023.

Some of the videos include automatically generated captions, which may not correspond to what is being spoken. Any mismatches that exist violate WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (Captions (Prerecorded), Level A). We will investigate and update all captions by 22/09/2023.

The heading structure is inconsistent in places. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships, Level A) and WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and labels, Level AA). We plan to update the headings so that the structure is consistent by 22/09/2023.

Several elements are not contained within an appropriate landmark. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships, Level A). We plan to ensure that all elements are contained within appropriate landmarks by 22/09/2023.

The site does not always honour the font size specified via browser settings or ad-hoc changes. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (Resize text, Level AA). We plan to ensure that by 22/09/2023 all pages on the site honour user choices of text size.

Some parts of the content cannot be accessed via the keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard, Level A). We will ensure that all parts of the site, including all navigation and all content, can be accessed via the keyboard by 22/09/2023.

Some pages are missing a page title. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page title, Level A). We will ensure that all pages have titles by 22/09/2023.

Some links (such as “Read more”) do not make sense out of context, and some links are empty. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose In Context, Level A). We plan to update the text of all such links by 22/09/2023, so that they are not empty and they make sense out of context.

The heading structure is inconsistent, in some places skipping heading levels. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Lavels, Level AA). We will ensure that the heading structure is consistent by 22/09/2023.

With keyboard navigation, some of the elements do not highlight when they receive focus. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7 (Focus State, Level AA). We plan to ensure, by 22/09/2023, that all elements indicate when they have received focus.

Some pages do not have the language specified. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of page, Level A). We will ensure that all pages include the specification of language by 22/09/2023.

Some elements are missing identifying information. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value, Level A). We will ensure that all elements have correct identifying information by 22/09/2023.

Older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software. This fails some of WCAG 2.1 success criteria PDF1 through PDF23. Whenever we publish new PDF content, we will make sure that the information in them can be accessed using screen readers and that we also provide HTML versions of that content.

Disproportionate burden

Having assessed the costs of compliance in relation to current operations to rebuild our services in a new Content Management System, we understand that at this time, compliance in accordance with regulation would impose a disproportionate burden. We plan to achieve compliance with the development of the rebuild of this website. This website will remain at the same domain name with no disruption to the user.

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

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages in the updated version of the website in the new Content Management System.

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.

Any new PDF or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Before publishing new content as a PDF or Word document, we will make sure that the alternative format is necessary, as advised by GDS.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

This website underwent a full third-party accessibility audit in September-October 2020. This accessibility statement has been updated to incorporate the results of that audit.

A new website that is compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA standards is planned for release.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 23rd June 2023.

This website was last tested on 16 October 2020. The test was carried out by Sigma Consulting Solutions Ltd.

The pages to test were chosen on the basis of the following user journeys:

  1. Find and read the latest Pension Wise service evaluation (2019/2020).
  2. Find information relating to a member of the Board.
  3. Contact the North West partnership team.
  4. A sample of pages involved in contacting relevant teams and reading evaluation reports.
  5. An extra random sample, as guided by the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) document (www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/conformance/wcag-em).

The testing assessed the following pages:

  • Home
  • Reports
  • Pension Wise service evaluation
  • PWSE PDF
  • Our board
  • Board member
  • Financial wellbeing in the workplace
  • UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing
  • Talk Money Week
  • Competency Framework
  • Blog
  • Blog post
  • Business plan
  • Research
  • Contact Us.

Testing used the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 levels A and AA to determine how accessible the selected pages are.

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