Please note that some of these facilities are NOT available on a phone or tablet presentation where alternatives may be provided by the device browser.
Visual Styles
Visual styling is accesible at the bottom right of the page via the universal access icon
Two visual style are available - the Default Theme and the Contrast Theme.
When you choose a new style by clicking on the image for high contrast or normal contrast (either or
), a cookie with the name of the theme is stored on your web browser so that the next time you visit, the site is presented with the same visual appearance.
You can also change the font size by using the "Bigger Reset Smaller" also accessible via at the bottom right of the screen via the universal access icon . The font size will also be remembered via a cookie between sessions and pages so you will come back to the site with the previous settings.
Please note that any external content inserted into this website e.g. Facebook or Twitter feeds, Google map conent etc, does not change contrast with this functionality - it is beyond the capabilities of the site and the responsibility of third parties.
Access Keys
Most browsers support site-defined keyboard access for specified links. However their use on websites is often inconsitent and may clash with the shortcut's setup by the user's assistive technology. On this site we therefore only use a subset of the recommended keys for UK Government Website which are setout below.
- S - Skip to main navigation
- 1 - Home page
- 3 - Site map
- 4 - Skip to Search
- 8 - Terms and Conditions of Use
- 9 - Feedback form / contact us
- 0 - Access key details
Access key use:
- On many Windows browsers, you can press ALT + an access key followed by RETURN, or ALT+SHIFT + an access key followed by RETURN;
- On many Mac browsers, you can press CTRL + an access key or CTRL + ALT + an access key depending on the browser version.
- A full list of browser key access controls for various browsers can be found here.
ARIA roles
The following ARIA landmark roles are used on this website:
- Banner: The page header. A region that contains mostly site-oriented content, rather than page-specific content;
- Complementary: the right Sidebar if present. A supporting section of the document, designed to be complementary to the main content, but remains meaningful when separated from the main content;
- ContentInfo: The page footer. A large perceivable region that contains information about the parent document. In this case the region is the page footer;
- Main: The main content of a document;
- Navigation: A collection of navigational elements ( links) for navigating the document or related documents.
- Presentation: Where a table layout is used purely for presentation rather than for data purposes the ARIA landmark role "presentation" is used.
Tab / Tabindex
There is no use of tab keys for field ordering on this site.
No CSS Stylesheet?
The site will still present without CSS styling enabled and there are jump links to aid navigation. The jump links also appear in the accessibility bar if CSS is enabled.
Images and Slideshows
Single images have alt captions wherever possible to aid with accessibility. Slideshows may not have this functionality but a general description for the slideshow will be provided by a link or title.
Links and iframes
Each link and iframe should each have a title to aid their accessibility.