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Accessibility Audit 2025

Introduction

This audit was completed in May 2025.

People may not have a choice when using a public sector website or app, so it’s important they work for everyone. The people who need them the most are often the people who find them hardest to use.

Regulations came into force for public sector bodies on 23 September 2018. They state that you must make your website or mobile app more accessible by making it ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’. The full name of the regulations is the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Overview

The Calderdale Next Chapter website has 247 active pages based on page views taken from website analytics between 1st January 2025 and 1st May 2025.

Website analytics provide a wider insight into how our page numbers evolve since launch. They may include pages that are no longer published and miss pages that have received no recent traffic.

The Calderdale Next Chapter website is made up of 3 core page types (published amount in brackets):

  • Articles (194)
  • Projects (30)
  • Unique or basic page (23)

Unique/basic pages do not follow a pre-defined layout like Articles or Projects.

3 different component types:

  • Header
  • Footer
  • Project carousel

Components are small pieces of self-contained design and functionality. They are managed in one place but used across multiple pages. This is beneficial as we can test smaller samples and apply one fix which updates all instances.

There are 24 published PDFs, a decrease of 149 since the last assessment.

Sample

Criteria

We use a representative sample of pages and features to test how accessible our websites are.
Our sample takes into consideration:

  • Pages that share the same source.
  • Reusable components that share the same source.
  • Unique features that use bespoke functionality to complete tasks.
  • Popular user journeys based on website analytics.

We believe this is the most effective approach to test our system as it allows us to test the widest range of layouts and functionality without having to run extensive tests on multiple comparable pages.

Inventory

Test process

All pages listed in the inventory are tested using the same process. They are first scanned using tools that can quickly detect common issues. We use a combination of:

  • WAVE
  • Axe dev tools
  • Google Lighthouse

An additional manual check is carried out aided by the NVDA screen reader application to address concerns that automated tools are unable to process.

We use Adobe Acrobat DC to test PDF documents. We first use the built-in accessibility checking function to quickly detect common issues. We then do a manual check of the document which includes checking the document tags, reading order, colour contrast, grammar and more.

Results

Our audit has identified areas where there is room for improvement and barriers that need overcoming. The results from this audit will be shared with the system and content owners so that remedial action can be taken.

Some errors may affect more than one page where they share the same source code such as in global elements like that header and footer. Where the same error is detected, it will only be recorded once against the page where it is first encountered.

Homepage

The homepage is an example of a unique page. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 100% for accessibility.

Automated checks highlighted:

  • 2 ‘Read more’ links in the news section of the page as being both redundant and suspicious.
  • Skip to main content link is marked as content sat outside of a landmark region.
  • The label of the 'news section' link is 'News'. These should be the same value.

Projects

The projects page is an example of a unique page. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 100% for accessibility.

  • Automated checks of the page reported it was unable to test contrast between the 'Construction complete' heading and the background. This was checked manually and was found to be of ample contrast.
  • Manual checks didn’t find any additional areas of concern.

News

The news page is an example of a unique page. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 96% for accessibility.

  • Automated checks highlighted no areas of concern.
  • Manual checks didn’t find any additional areas of concern.

Proposals for Skircoat

This page is an example of a basic page. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 100% for accessibility.

Automated checks highlighted:

  • The page has two level 1 headings, causing issues with structure.

Manual checks uncovered:

  • The table has no defined heading.
  • The table refers to information screen readers don't have access to within an image.

Brighouse Towns Fund

This is an example of a project page which shares its design and functionality with all other project pages. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 100% for accessibility.

  • Automated checks highlighted no areas of concern.

Manual checks uncovered:

  • The map embed can receive focus – this could be a hindrance for screen readers.

Grand plans for a thriving future

This is an example of a news article page which shares its design and functionality with all other news articles. No critical errors were detected in the automated check of the page. Google Lighthouse scored the page 100% for accessibility.

  • Automated checks highlighted no areas of concern.
  • Manual checks uncovered no additional areas of concern.

A629 Halifax to Huddersfield

This is an example of a PDF file linked to from a news page.

An automated check of the document highlighted:

  • No heading structure.
  • Document language has not been set.
  • No table headings set.
  • Logo images are missing alternate text.
  • The image which makes up the heading section is not marked as decorational.

A manual check of the document uncovered:

  • There are no semantic headings or easy means of navigation due to absence of tags.
  • Document reading order does not follow the expected top to bottom, left to right.

Recommendations

Based on the assessment results, the following actions are recommended to improve the accessibility of the website:

  • System owner to update website code to address technical issues highlighted
  • System owner to explore pages outside of the test sample for any other areas that can be improved
  • Content owner to schedule remedial action for inaccessible PDF documents prioritising them based on publish date or popularity.
  • Content owner to publish all future updates in one of the following formats in order of most appropriate:
    • Native web page built with semantic HTML in accordance with WCAG 2.2;
    • Semantically tagged PDF files designed in accordance with WCAG 2.2;
    • Partially compliant document or webpage that demonstrates an attempt has been made to meet basic accessibility requirements where possible. This must include a fully accessible counterpart uploaded alongside the original.