Accessibility statement

Conformance target

This site is built to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA. That target shaped the build rather than being checked against it afterward: color values from the approved design were darkened where small text would otherwise have failed the AA contrast ratio, every control that navigates is a link rather than a button so that it works with the keyboard and with browser history, and the page works with JavaScript switched off.

What has been tested

These checks were run by hand during the build, on the current pages:

• Layout at 1440, 1024, 768 and 390 pixels wide, with no horizontal overflow at any of those widths.
• Keyboard only, with no mouse: the skip link is first in tab order and becomes visible when it takes focus, and every interactive control shows a visible focus ring.
• Every link has an accessible name; every image carries an alt attribute.
• The site with JavaScript disabled - all primary navigation stays visible and reachable, and no link is a dead placeholder.
• Text contrast, recalculated for the small labels, meta text, breadcrumbs and table headings the design set in a lighter gray. Each was darkened until it met AA.
• Markup against the W3C validator, which reports no errors and no warnings.

What has not been tested

No formal accessibility audit has been carried out on this site, and conformance has not been assessed or verified by any third party. Specifically:

• No testing with screen readers or other assistive technology.
• No automated audit run against a deployed origin - that needs the final images and a live URL, and it has not happened yet.
• No assessment of the documents, registries and external organizations linked from this site. Those are outside our control.

Known limitations

• Video transcripts are pending. Every video here is built to ship a full text transcript alongside it. The narration text has not been supplied yet, so the transcript panel currently says so instead of carrying the words.
• The hero animation deliberately does not load for everyone. The background video is never requested when a browser reports a reduced-motion preference or Save Data, or when the connection is reported as 2g. Nothing on the page depends on it: the heading, standfirst and links are ordinary text, and a still frame of the animation stands in.

Applicable law

We treat the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the operative standard because that is what the law effectively points to, even where a statute does not name a version.

• Americans with Disabilities Act, Title III. Courts have applied it to the websites of businesses open to the public, and WCAG at Level AA is the benchmark most commonly used to judge whether a site meets it.
• California Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civil Code section 51). A violation of the ADA is a violation of the Unruh Act, and the Unruh Act carries statutory damages per offense. California is where most web-accessibility claims in the United States are brought.
• California Government Code section 11135, which applies to programs receiving state financial assistance and names an accessibility standard directly rather than leaving it to case law.
• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which sets WCAG 2.0 Level AA as its baseline for federal contexts.

We build to WCAG 2.2 Level AA, which is the most recent version and includes everything required by 2.1 and 2.0. Where a specific obligation names an earlier version, meeting 2.2 meets it.

Automated checks

Some accessibility failures can be decided by a machine, and those are checked automatically every time this site is rebuilt. The build does not complete if any of them fail. They cover: missing alternative text, controls and links with no accessible name, form fields with no label, missing page language, duplicate element identifiers, a focus indicator that does not meet the required contrast, text and interface colors that fall below the required contrast ratios, headings that skip a level, a viewport that blocks zooming, and a positive tab index.

This matters, but it should not be overstated: automated testing decides roughly a third of the WCAG criteria. The rest needs a person. A clean automated run is not a claim of conformance, and we do not make one.

Report a barrier

If any part of this site stops you doing what you came to do, tell us. It is treated as a defect, not a request. It helps to say which page you were on, what you were trying to do, and which browser and assistive technology you were using.

We aim to acknowledge within five business days and to tell you what we intend to do about it, and when. If a fix will take time, we will offer another way to get the same information or complete the same task in the meantime. If you need anything on this site in a different format, ask and we will provide one at no charge.