We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience regardless of disability, capability or technology.

Our web content has been designed to be used with a range of different access technologies. The content can be viewed on a range of different screen sizes and the size of text can be changed to suit different people. 

Accessibility guidelines

All pages of this website conform to level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. These guidelines are the internationally recognized benchmark for building accessible websites.

Following these guidelines also makes web content more user friendly for all people. 

Web standards and technologies

This website has been built to conform to W3C standards for HTML and CSS. These technologies are relied upon throughout the site. The site should display correctly in all popular web browsers, and degrades gracefully in older browsers.

In addition, this website uses JavaScript and PDFs. These technologies are not relied upon and the website works perfectly well without them. Where they have been used, they meet the same high levels of accessibility as the rest of the site.

Changing Settings

Using your web browser, you can change the size of text on this web content and make other helpful changes:

Making text bigger or zooming your screen

It's easy to resize your text to make it easier to read. Follow the instructions below for your type of computer and web browser:

PC with Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome: Hold down the CTRL key and press + (plus) to increase and CTRL - (minus) to decrease
Mac with Firefox, Safari or Chrome: Hold down the CMD key and press + (plus) to increase and hold down the CMD key and press - (minus) to decrease
Alternatively, if you are using a modern set up and have a mouse with a wheel you can also alter the size of the text by holding down CTRL (PC) or CMD (Mac) on your keyboard while scrolling up and down with the mouse wheel.

If you don't know what web browser program you are using you can find out here: www.whatsmybrowser.org

For more information about web browsers check out this What is a Web Browser acticle.

If you want information on how to change your text size you can find out here: www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/text_larger

Using the Tab key to navigate the site without a mouse

You can use the Tab key on your keyboard to move between links and form fields on each page. A single press of Tab highlights the next link, Shift+Tab highlights the previous link. When you use the Tab key to move between links on the website, you'll be taken through them in a logical order. Every effort has been made to ensure that link names are distinct and not repeated on pages.

Contrast

We have worked to make sure that there is sufficient contrast between text and background colours on the website. If you notice any colour combinations that cause you problems, please contact us.

For more information on how to change your text and background colours: www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/change_colours

Make your computer speak text aloud

Most computers have an in-built text to speech function that can be switched on. The following guides should make this work on most computers:

www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/speak_text

There are also third-party screen-readers and text-to-speech software applications available.

Contact information

We are continually working to maintain the accessibility of this website. If you experience any problem accessing the site then please contact us.

Please note: for advice on what information to include when you contact us, we recommending you read 'Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites' http://www.w3.org/WAI/users/inaccessible