Accessibility statement for syfire.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to syfire.gov.uk

The website is run by South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue. It contains information about how our organisation is run, how people can make themselves and buildings safer and opportunities to work for us.

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 using browser or device settings
• zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader

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.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: the Corporate Communication team by email on press@syfire.gov.uk or in writing to South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue on 197 Eyre Street, Sheffield, S1 3FG.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• email press@syfire.gov.uk
• call 0114 253 2351

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 working days.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us on 0114 272 7272 or customercare@syfire.gov.uk for directions.

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) [2.1] AA standard.

This website is 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

Some older 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).

We plan to add text alternatives for all images by April 2025 following publication of a new site. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Navigation and accessing information

Some links cannot be distinguished from surrounding text in a way that does not rely on colour. We plan to resolve this issue by October 2025.

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 some older policies and public registers.

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

Descriptive audio tracks

Some older embedded videos do not have descriptive audio tracks. Pre-recorded time-based media published before 23rd September 2020 are exempt from the regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are currently beginning work to develop a new website to improve the accessibility of our website. Once the site is built, we will carry out an audit using external specialists to ensure accessibility compliance.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 1 October 2020.  It was last reviewed on 10 September 2024.

This website was last tested in June 2020 against the WCAG [2.1] AA standard.

The sample test of our most viewed pages was carried out by Zoonou- a third party organisation.

A further sample audit of the website was conducted by the Cabinet Office in August 2022 and this identified some issues which were resolved by 31 January 2023.

A further sample audit of the website was conducted by the Cabinet Office in June 2024 and we are working to resolve these issues by 13 September 2024.