Release date: 10 October 2023
West Sussex County Council’s website (www.westsussex.gov.uk) has maintained the much coveted Shaw Trust Accessibility Accreditation for a second year in a row.
Shaw Trust, a leading UK charity that specialises in auditing websites for accessibility, was commissioned by West Sussex County Council (WSCC) to rigorously test their website to understand if the site complied with related regulations and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Tested by people with a wide range of disabilities, the website was found to be accessible and WSCC remains the only county council to currently hold this accreditation.
The website has 450,000 visits per month and with 1 in 5 people in the UK having a long-term illness, impairment or disability and many more have a temporary disability it is so important for the website to be accessible. The way people use the website varies from person to person, some people may have impaired vision and listen to the content on the WSCC website using a screen reader and some people may need to be able to zoom in on the text to read it.
To meet a wide variety of needs and support the Council Plan theme of making the best use of resource, WSCC used the Shaw Trust findings to update web content and make technical changes to the website. These changes included updating documents and adding alternative text to images.
Councillor Steve Waight, Cabinet Member for Support Services and Economic Development said “This is a fantastic achievement and on behalf of the county council I thank all those involved for their hard work to help maintain the accreditation and ensuring our website is accessible to everyone.”
For more information about the accessibility status of the WSCC website, please visit our accessibility statement. We are also continuously looking to improve our website and would appreciate feedback via our Website Survey | Your Voice West Sussex.
