The National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) strives to ensure that our digital environment is as accessible as possible, and that our website is inclusive of people with a variety of digital needs and challenges.  

The NCCPE digital environment includes:

• NCCPE website
• Webforms – which we use for people to sign up to events and opportunities, and express their interest in getting involved with NCCPE work
• NCCPE digital newsletters
• NCCPE social media channels (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)
• NCCPE YouTube channel
• Digital materials we produce such as videos, audio recordings and online training
• Digital documents such as PDFs

The new NCCPE website was developed in 2023 and is managed by a company called Big Blue Door (BBD). The BBD team includes people with user experience and digital accessibility expertise, which helped to inform the design of our website.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use the NCCPE website. This means it should be accessible to a wide range of users, including those living with conditions that may affect their digital experience.

You should be able to:

• understand the text used on the website. It should be clear and easy to read
• have access to images and video content. For example, you should be able to view videos on the device you are using and select subtitles with ease
• search for anything you need on the website using the search box function
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader

Some of our PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

Web accessibility regulations don’t require us to update PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, though we will make every effort to update older documents where they are essential to providing our services and supporting our audiences. 

We are working to ensure that all future content and resources we publish will be available as a webpage – either as a full resource or as a shorter, ‘easy access’ version that is accompanied by a downloadable resource. If for any reason this is not possible, we will ensure that any new PDF is also published as a word document, which is accessible with screen readers.

Subtitles are automatically generated by YouTube for all of our videos, but we recognise that these are not always accessible. We do not currently automatically provide transcripts for all of our videos. If you require more accessible captions, or a transcript for a video, please contact us and we work with you to meet your accessibility requirements. 

We have also conducted two rounds of user testing with people who represent different users of the NCCPE website. This includes people from across different sectors, roles and perspectives, and at different levels of their career. The NCCPE website is informed by their feedback. We intend to carry out user testing for our website on an annual basis to address any accessibility issues as they arise and improve website functions accordingly.

There are a range of tools and software available that can assist people living with conditions that may affect how they access the website. 

Microsoft and Apple both provide a variety of features that can assist you in navigating websites on your PC, MAC and tablet devices. Learn more about MAC’s accessibility features and Microsoft’s accessibility tools.
 

Other assistive technologies you may find useful include:

Screen readers

• Balabolka: read aloud or save text to a sound file so you can listen to it later. 
• Orato: have your text read out loud and read along with word highlighting. 
• NVDA: screen reader with advanced options (a free alternative to JAWS). 

Coloured Overlay

• Ss Overlay: add a colour overlay to the screen with customisable transparency. 

Magnifying glass

• Virtual Magnifying Glass: zooms the screen through a lens that follows your mouse

If there are other assistive technologies that you have found useful, please let us know and we can add them to this list. 

If you need information on this website in a different format, or if you find any problems that aren’t listed in this statement or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please contact the NCCPE team.

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).

The NCCPE strives to ensure our website complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. 
 

We will continue to review and test our website (https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/) and make changes according to the feedback and needs of NCCPE users. If you would like to provide us with feedback on the website, please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing nccpe.enquiries@uwe.ac.uk.