Accessibility Statement
This is the Accessibility Statement for the People First website. This website is run by the London Borough Councils of Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster, hereby known as "the Council” or “we”.
This website should allow any user to:
- Change colours, contrast levels and size of text.
- Modify the line height or spacing of text.
- Zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the page.
We have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
This website was updated on 22 August 2025 to resolve accessibility issues raised by an accessibility audit from the Cabinet Office. It has been updated to be compliant with the international standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 (WCAG) – Level AA.
How Accessible is this Website?
We are aware that there are many parts of this website that are not fully accessible :-
- This website uses JavaScript to deliver certain features. Please make sure you have JavaScript turned on within your browser to deliver full features;
- Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software;
- Live video streams do not have captions;
Using this Website
Accessible Features
This website uses a widget that contains several Accessible features that can be used by users with specific requirements. The widget is available on the top right-hand side of the header menu.
These features include: -
- Translation
You can use the Google Translate feature at the top right of the screen to translate the text to any of the available languages, including common community languages in London such as Ukrainian, Bengali, Chinese, and Somali. Please note that the translation is done automatically by the Google software, not by the councils. - Contrast & Font Size
Changing the contrast and font sizes of text can increase legibility for some users.
The “default colour scheme” which was decided as the branding colour schema for this website. It has been discovered that this schema does not satisfy current accessibility standards. Therefore, this website also contains a “high contrast scheme” which satisfies all accessibility standards for colour contrast. - Further information on accessibility options
The RNIB has a webpage with information on options that computers have which can make it easier for people with low or no vision to use them. - RNB Accessibility Options
Accessible Alternatives
Efforts have been made to create accessible alternatives for content that does not meet standards where possible.
Where appropriate we may be able to deliver content to users in accordance with their needs.
Please see “Make a request for Accessible Content” section for further details.
Make a request for Accessible Content
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille; Please email us on mail@peoplefirstinfo.org.uk
Purpose of Links
We will use links to navigate to content on the website. External links will open in a new window.
Where possible the action of an external link will be described by extra description within the link text, so all users can understand the link’s purpose. However, in certain areas of the website adding this extra description will become a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.
We have provided the following definition for external links: -
External Links will be used for any content that has known limitations with assistive technologies OR navigates a user away from secure platforms. In summary, this means the following items are considered External links –
- Non-HTML Documentation (See “Issues with PDFs and other documents”)
- Redirection away from secure platforms
- External websites that are not part of the two councils.
Feedback and contact information
If you find any problems that are not listed within this statement, or believe we are not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations please contact us.
Contact details for People First Councils
Email us on mail@peoplefirstinfo.org.uk We will consider your request and get back to you in 30 days.
For further information see Contact Us page.
Enforcement Procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Services (EASS)
Technical Information about this Website’s Accessibility
The Councils are committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance Status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 (WCAG) AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed in the following section, “Non-Accessible Content”.
Non-Accessible Content
This chapter lists issues that fail the current accessibility regulations. The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
This sub-section lists issues that fail the current accessibility regulations.
During our last review of this website we have fixed all major issues that failed WCAG 2.2, please see "Resolutions Section" for detailed summary of the fixes.
Areas of the website that fail to meet WCAG 2.2 have been brought to our attention.
Issues with Extra Navigation on Search Directory
It has come to our attention that the Search Directory for Events and People doesn't have an extra bypass block to skip straight to results. This potentially fails success criterion 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks(A).
Our website provider is currently working on a fix in a future update. We expect this to be deployed in October.
We would recommend using the heading levels if you don't want to scroll through the facets section
Issues with Content – Link Text and General Content
It has come to our attention that not all Content pages have been written using the correct semantic elements. Heading Levels have been mistakenly skipped. This potentially fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships(A) and 2.4.1 Bypass blocks (A). We are currently reviewing our written process and updating issues when they have been discovered.
Some link text does not make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’). This potentially fails success criteria 2.4.4 and 2.4.9 Link Purpose. When we publish new content, we will make sure link text meets accessibility standards.
Issues with PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up to be accessible for a screen reader.
We are currently updating our PDFs into accessible webpages
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Issues with images, video and audio
Live video streams have captions auto added by YouTube, not all videos are currently checked for the accuracy of their captioning. This potentially fails WCAG 2.2, Level A success criteria, 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded), and 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded).
Certain images do not have descriptive enough alternative text. This potentially fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content(A).
We are reviewing all images that are used to describe essential content to the user, for example the PeopleFirst Logo.
Resolutions of Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Since this statement was last updated the following accessibility issues have been resolved.
RESOLVED: Issues with Colour Contrast being too low and items not being focus visible
The following issues were resolved from the 22nd August 2025 deployment.
Disproportionate Burden
There are no issues that are considered a disproportionate burden.
Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
Web Content that is not subject to the standards referenced in this policy statement are as follows: -
- Content that is archived.
- Content on intranets and extranets published before 23/09/2019
- Non-HTML Documentation (PDFs, Microsoft Office files) that were published before 23/09/2018.
- Non-HTML Documentation (PDFs, Microsoft Office files) that are not essential to the services the councils provide.
- Live Audio and Video
- Pre-recorded Audio and Video published before 23/09/2020
- Online Maps and mapping services
- Third Party Content that is not under direct control of the councils or main website provider – Google Translate, Social Media links
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
The new version of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.2 were published on 5 October 2023.
This has replaced WCAG 2.1 as the legally required accessibility standard on October 2024.
A Cabinet Office audit was carried out on the 12 June 2025 to check the accessibility of this website.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 5 August 2020. It will be reviewed every year in accordance with the regulations. It was last reviewed on 22 August 2025.
This website was tested on 12 June 2025 by the Cabinet Office. Further accessibility audits were carried out by the Council and our website provider, People Places Lives on the 29 June 2025 and 22 August 2025.
To prepare this statement an accessibility test was carried out by People Places Lives QA Team. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.