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Accessibility statement for JNCC website

© Wendy Dalton

This accessibility statement applies to the JNCC website, which includes:

We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website, which has been built to work in recent versions of the most widely used browsers and should be compatible with recent versions of assistive software. 

This website is run by JNCC (Joint Nature Conservation Committee). 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 500% without the text spilling off the screen and without content being truncated or overlapping.
  • Navigate most of the content 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, although some specialist scientific language is unavoidable (for example when describing species and habitats).

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

 

How accessible this website is

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

  • Interactive maps and tools, such as the Marine Protected Areas mapper and the Chile Ecosystem Service Mapper, are unlikely to perform well in assistive software.
  • Some of our images do not have appropriate descriptions, including in some downloadable resources.
  • Some of our content headings have not been marked up correctly.
  • Some tables may not have column and/or row headings.
  • Some content (text, images) within pages and documents has poor colour contrast.
  • Many documents are in PDF format and are not fully accessible. They may lack alternative text for images, or a language setting.
  • Many of our videos are embedded from YouTube and may feature inadequate or incorrect captions generated by YouTube. In some cases the captions are missing entirely. 
  • Our video content does not have audio description.
  • The MPA Mapper does not display at a zoom of 150% or higher.
  • At zoom levels of 250% or above, the video on the Oceans & Climate change page is truncated.
  • Some visual headings are not marked up correctly for screen readers.
  • Some navigation dropdown lists, tabs, horizontal sliders, buttons, and links cannot easily be operated using a keyboard.
  • Some text boxes do not have a text label to describe their purpose.
  • Some dropdown lists and text that are acting as visual cues for link or buttons are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
  • Some links and buttons do not have a focus indicator, which makes keyboard navigation difficult.
  • At certain zoom percentages (200%, 400%), on some pages the keyboard focus can move to the page content behind a menu if the user tabs away from the menu. This results in some links being hidden from view when they receive keyboard focus.
  • The VInES application can be displayed in different languages but this is not conveyed to screen readers so they mispronounce the text.
  • In our contact form and the VInES application assistive technologies are not alerted when there is an error.

We are working to resolve these issues, and to identify any other outstanding issues.  We will update the statement when issues are fixed or with information on when we expect them to be fixed.

 

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:

  • Contact us through the website
  • call +44 (0)1733 562626

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within five business days.

 

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, please use our contact form to get in touch. Your comments will be sent to our Web Team to investigate.

 

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

JNCC is 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 version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

 

Non-accessible content

Some parts of our website may not work for everyone. Below are known issues that we either need to fix, cannot fix, or do not need to fix right now.

If you find an issue that we have missed please contact us.

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Please note that some non-compliance issues were assessed against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 (WCAG 2.1), in response to an accessibility audit in 2021. Following an accessibility report from gov.uk in October 2025, some issues have been reported against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 (WCAG 2.2). A full audit of our web estate under WCAG 2.2 has not yet been completed. It is anticipated that this will be undertaken before the end of May 2026.

 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • We display our video content through YouTube, and captions can be enabled in the YouTube player. At the moment many of our videos are captioned or transcribed automatically, so there might be some errors. Also, some captions are missing. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2).
  • Some videos do not have an alternative text version and do not provide sufficient description of the important visual content in the audio track. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3).
  • Some visual headings are not marked up correctly. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
  • Some images, on our website, and in our documents, do not have alternative text descriptions which describe the information or function represented in the image (WCAG 2.2, success criterion 1.1.1, Non-text Content).
  • Some tables may not have column and/or row headings. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
  • The MPA mapper page contains treeview navigation that is not marked up correctly. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
  • Some navigation dropdown lists, tabs, horizontal sliders, buttons, and links cannot be operated using a keyboard. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1).
  • When hovering over the navigation bar dropdown menus, there is no mechanism to dismiss the additional content triggered without moving pointer hover or keyboard focus (WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.13, Content on Hover or Focus).
  • At 200% and 400% zoom, when the hamburger menu is open, the keyboard focus can move to the content behind it if the user tabs away from the menu. This results in some other links (e.g. breadcrumb menu links) being hidden from view when they receive keyboard focus (WCAG 2.2, success criterion 2.4.11, Focus Not Obscured (Minimum)).
  • Some text boxes do not have a text label to describe their purpose. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2).
  • There are numerous HTML5 validation errors (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1).
  • Some custom links and buttons do not have a programmatic role, so they are not fully accessible to screen reader software. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2).
  • Some text, headings, links, buttons, map content, and video content are difficult to read as they do not have sufficient colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast) and 1.4.11 (Non-text Contrast). This includes the toggle button for 'Cookies that measure website use', within the cookie banner, which was assessed against WCAG 2.2.
  • The MPA Mapper does not display at a zoom of 150% or higher. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10).
  • At zoom levels of 250% or above, the video on the Oceans & Climate change page is truncated. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10).
  • Some links and buttons do not have a focus indicator (WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.7, Focus Visibile). This includes the magnifying glass icon within the search banner at the top of all pages on jncc.gov.uk and the 'Subscribe'' button on our Nature News sign-up form. 
  • At 200% zoom and more, once the magnifying glass icon has been expanded, the search banner is only accessible using the keyboard if the user tabs backwards (WCAG 2.2, success criterion 2.4.3, Focus Order).
  • The VInES application can be displayed in different languages but this is not conveyed programmatically (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.2).
  • In our contact form and the VInES application assistive technologies are not alerted when there is an error. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.3).
  • In some of our PDF documents, the language is missing within the settings of the document (WCAG 2.2, success criterion 3.1.1, Language of page). 
  • Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format

 

Disproportionate burden

This disproportionate burden statement statement was produced in 2021 and will be updated following our next full accessibility audit, which we anticipate will be completed by the end of April 2026. Since 2021, we have made progress with making more of our PDF resources accessible, and have created some resources in webpage format as well as PDF (such as our Strategy: Together for Nature). 

PDFs and other documents

Given the nature of our work, many of the documents and reports that we publish on our website, particularly on our Resource Hub, are in PDF format. These are scientific and produced for a specialist audience. The following PDF material may not meet accessibility standards, if it would be a would be a disproportionate burden to do so within the meaning of the accessibility regulations:

  • Materials produced to support externally funded projects (unless accessible products/outputs are specified in the contract).
  • Some JNCC reports where the content is necessarily technical in nature.
  • Marketing and promotional material (including leaflets/brochures, posters and banners.
  • Copies of Powerpoint presentations which have been converted into a PDF format.

The resources listed above may contain necessary scientific and technical content which may not be considered to be plain English. Material published on our Resource Hub will be accompanied by a short summary or abstract which is suitable for a wider audience. Some of these resources also contain a number of images, including maps, which are essential content, but for which text descriptions are not included due to the number of images and/or the complexity of the material contained within the images.

We believe that fixing the issues associated with all of these PDFs would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. From August 2021 we have been exploring options for producing more accessible versions of some of our corporate and most visited resources. This includes the development of templates and guidance for all staff to enable them to create more accessible reports and documents. 

Accessible versions of our resources can be made available on request.

 

Interactive tools

Complex user interfaces for interactive mapping are difficult to make accessible with current technology and we believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when we next do a major re-development of the mapping applications, likely to be in 3 to 5 years.

 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

  • PDFs and other non-HTML documents published before September 2018 do not need to be accessible. We will provide accessible versions on request.
  • Pre-recorded videos published before 23 September 2020. This includes content published on platforms such as YouTube.

 

How we tested this website

Full testing (2021)

The following websites were last fully tested in August 2021 by Test Partners Ltd:

The following websites were last tested in June 2019 and are due to be tested again in 2026:

We followed GOV.UK guidance on deciding how to check the JNCC website as follows:

  1. We used an automated website mapping tool to identify all the pages and documents on the website.
  2. We identified the subdomains that are out of scope and removed all the pages from the page list.
  3. We removed all the documents from the list. We are currently using the disproportionate burden exemption, but we are planning a programme of remediation.
  4. We grouped the remaining pages according to type, such as all the News pages, Blog pages, 'about us' pages, 'our work' pages.
  5. We manually assessed a number of pages from each group to determine the level of consistency within the group and the type of content on those pages.
  6. We manually assessed all the "unique" pages such as the home page and Contact Us to determine the type of content on those pages.
  7. We identified a minimum representative subset of pages that contain examples of the most common layouts, components and features, including the following: the header and footer; important “unique pages”; pages with text content and data tables; pages with informational images, images of text and video content; interactive elements such as maps, lightboxes, forms, tabbed interfaces and content filtering.
  8. We conducted a manual WCAG audit on the representative subset of pages.
  9. We will conduct further rounds of fixing and retesting until all the WCAG non-conformances have been fixed.

Gov.uk accessibility report (October 2025)

The Accessibility Monitoring Team within the Government Digital Service provided an accessibility report on 3 October 2025 following a spot check under WCAG 2.2. In response to that report we have updated our accessibility statement, and are working to rectify the issues identified by that report before the end of February 2026. 

All our websites are due to be fully retested before the end of May 2026 against WCAG 2.2, following an upgrade to the website’s content management system, due to be undertaken in February and March 2026.

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are regularly reviewing the content on our site to identify accessibility issues that need to be resolved. We will update this page when we identify issues, and when issues are fixed. 

We have produced document templates and guidance for all staff to use in order to create accessible documents, such as reports, and are exploring options to publish some of our more popular resources in webpage format as well as in PDF format.

In response to the issues raised by the Gov.uk accessibility report in October 2025, we are working to fix the issues raised by that audit by the end of February 2026. 

In addition, we previously (August 2021) advised that we anticipated migrating and upgrading the main website in April 2022 to a newer version of our current content management system (Umbraco), and that as part of that migration we would be addressing the accessibility of both the structure of the website and of the content. As of January 2026, this migration task remains underway, but is not yet complete. We have undertaken phase 1 of the migration, and phase 2 is due to commence in February 2026. It is now expected to be complete by the end of March 2026. 

Following completion of the migration, our website will be comprehensively accessibility tested against version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2). This is due to be undertaken before the end of May 2026. The results of the audit, and our proposed plan for rectifying any issues raised will be published in our accessibility statement by the end of July 2026.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 3 July 2019 and subsequently updated on 23 August 2021, 23 January 2023 and 14 January 2025. It was last reviewed on 5 February 2026.

Published: .

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of JNCC’s website. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers, by contacting us using the form below. We try to respond to feedback within five business days.

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