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Accessibility Compliance Statement

You can customise our site via our accessibility tool in the top right hand corner.

Using this website

This website is run by FCDO Services. 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

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)

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

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

Some isolated instances of text used in conjunction with background images may cause contrast ratio guidelines to not be met

ReciteMe third-party accessibility tools can cause some issues with navigation and header

Carousels using third-party open source plugin fail on one accessibility success criterion

Cookie Notice Plugin fails on two accessibility guidelines

Our applicant tracking system

Further information about these points of failure can be found in the ‘Non-compliance with accessibility regulations’ section further down this page.

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille: email FCDOServices.recruitment@fcdo.gov.uk

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, contact: FCDOServices.recruitment@fcdo.gov.uk

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing 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

FCDO Services is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. 

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Every effort has been made during design and development of the website to ensure contrast ratio across all pages meets accessibility standards. There may be a small number of isolated instances at certain screen sizes where text overlapping background images may cause a failure to meet this standard. Where identified through testing this has been rectified, however there may be isolated occurrences that still remain.

Two open source plugins are in use which fail to meet accessibility standards:

Tiny Carousel – Computed accessible name differs from visible text (WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion 2.5.3)

Cookie Notice Plugin ­– Computed accessible name has text different from visible text (WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion 2.5.3) and has an HTML Link Element with an invalid hypertext reference (WCAG 2.0 A success criterion 4.1.2).

In both cases issues have been raised with the open source plugin project owners however we cannot guarantee when or if a resolution will be made.

The ReciteMe plugin allows for an accessibility toolkit to be enabled on this website via the ‘accessibility tools’ link in the header. This plugin causes two issues when the tool is used, which do not occur when the same features are used as part of the native browser experience:

When increasing the screen size, the navbar overflows and can’t be used to navigate. It covers the content and headers on the page. Manually increasing the screen size in your browser without using the ReciteMe tool does not cause this issue.

When using the font / line-height increase tool of ReciteMe, the homepage header title overlaps. This issue only occurs when the font size is adjusted via ReciteMe, and not when done using native browser behaviour to achieve a font size increase.

Our applicant tracking system

Is hosted on a different site and has not yet been fully audited. If you have any issues with using our system to apply for a job then please contact us on FCDOServices.recruitment@fcdo.gov.uk 

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 1st July 2021. The test was carried out by Stafford Long & Partners. The test approach covered a representative sample of pages encompassing different content and design elements from across the website.

As a result, a total 7 issues were identified as fixable beyond the above mentioned non-compliant parts of the website, and amendments are being made with a view to all 7 issues being resolved by 1 September 2021.

This statement was prepared on 01/07/2021.