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Accessibility statement for careers.southampton.gov.uk

Southampton City Council is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This accessibility statement applies to the Southampton City Council job vacancies website https://careers.southampton.gov.uk.

Compliance status

This 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

  1. The navigation between pages at the bottom of the home page is not written semantically as a list. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose).
  2. The filtering options on the home page do not have fully accessible labels for assistive technologies to use. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
  3. The filtering and search options on the home page do not have labels that remain visible when a user interacts with the filter or starts typing a search term. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
  4. Links within the body text on several pages are only distinguishable by colour before a user interacts with them. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.1 (Use of Color).
  5. On the home page, the placeholder text shown for the filtering options does not have sufficient colour contrast between the foreground and background colours. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum)).
  6. On the home page, the pagination text used for "first", "previous", "next" and "last" does not have sufficient colour contrast when the text is not a link. For instance, while viewing the first page of results, “first” and “previous” are not links and do not have sufficient colour contrast between the foreground and background colours. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum)).
  7. Text on the home page cannot be resized to 200% without obscuring some of the content. At 200% zoom some of the links to job vacancy advertisements are not fully visible and the filtering options partially cover other content. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.4 (Resize Text).
  8. When the home page is viewed at 400% zoom, the links for “Next” and “Last” do not reflow to fit on the webpage without scrolling. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow).
  9. On the Login and Register pages, the form controls do not have sufficient contrast with the surrounding area. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.11 (Non-text Contrast).
  10. The navigation between pages at the bottom of the home page are not accessible using keyboard navigation. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).
  11. The links to switch between tile and list view on the home page work when clicked with a mouse but they cannot be focused on or selected using keyboard navigation. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).
  12. The links to view a different number of vacancies on the home page work when clicked with a mouse but they cannot be focused on or selected using keyboard navigation. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).
  13. Some frames on the website do not have an accessible name. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks) and WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
  14. The same link text is used to point to different web addresses in the case of the “Read more” links on the home page. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)).
  15. Some elements on the website do not have a visible focus when the element has keyboard focus. This includes buttons such as “Save” and “Cancel” on the Register page. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.7 (Focus Visible).
  16. The "Read more" links on the home page do not have sufficient spacing between them and the job vacancy title below them when viewed on mobile devices. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.5.8 (Target Size (Minimum)).
  17. The 404 page does not have a language specified for it. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page).
  18. The links to switch between tile and list view on the home page work do not contain machine-readable text which define the link in a way that can be used by accessibility technologies. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).

The platform used to edit and publish this website is provided by Hireserve, a third party. We have liaised with them regarding the above compliance failures and they have committed to fixing all of them. They have agreed to undertake this work in the week beginning 22 April 2024. We will then take several days to test the outcome, request any further work needed and ensure that all compliance failures have been fully resolved.

We will then complete another evaluation of our website and review our accessibility statement. We will publish an updated accessibility statement by end of 9 May 2024 and we expect that all of the above compliance failures will be resolved by that time.

There is one compliance failure we have identified that does not require work from Hireserve to fix. When two or more job vacancies with the same job title appear on the home page at the same time, the same link text is used to point to different web addresses. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)). We are rolling out training for our internal recruitment staff to ensure that new vacancies are added in such a way that job titles are not duplicated. All job vacancies published from 1 May 2024 onwards will be compliant in this way.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22 April 2024.

This website was last tested on 18 April 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. All pages on the site were tested using the Silktide automated tool and every compliance issue raised in this way was also manually tested and reviewed. In addition, we manually tested a sample of pages using a variety of methods.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please call our switchboard on 023 8083 3000.

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

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact us by emailing webfeedback@southampton.gov.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).