Accessibility statement

Using our documents

The Kent and Medway Resilience Forum publishes documents in a range of formats, including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and PDF documents.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use those documents. For example, when we produce a document we make sure to:

provide an HTML option where possible
tag headings and other parts of the document properly, so screen readers can understand the page structure
make sure we include alt text alongside non-decorative images, so people who cannot see them understand what they’re there for
avoid using tables, except when we’re presenting data
write in plain English.

How accessible our documents are

New documents we publish and documents you need to download or fill in to access one of the services we provide should be fully accessible.

However, we know that some of our older documents (published before 23 September 2018) are not accessible. For example, some of them:

are not tagged up properly - for example, they do not contain proper headings
are not written in plain English

This mostly applies to some of our PDF and word documents. We have plans in place to convert them to more accessible formats. But if you need to access information in one of these document types, you can contact us and ask for an alternative format.

What to do if you cannot access one of our documents

If you cannot access one of our comments or need the information we’ve published in a different format:

email: krf@kent.fire-uk.org
call: 01622 212409

We’ll consider the request and get back to you in working 14 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with one of our documents

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: krf@kent.fire-uk.org.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (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 the accessibility of our documents

Kent and Medway Resilience Forum is committed to making our documents accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages where possible and there do not meet the threshhold for disproportionate burden.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

How we tested our documents

We tested a sample of our documents using in house resources as part of an overhaul of our published content.

We tested:

a representative sample of all our HTML pages on the site, focusing on those which related to safety advice to the public.
some sample documents on the site
All media content published on the site to date.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We carried out a ‘disproportionate burden’ assessment and decided that making some of our older documents accessible right away would be a disproportionate burden for the organisation. This relates to PDF documents owned by third party organisations, including the Environment Agency on our flooding pages. When these are updated to an accessible format we will replace them on Kent and Medway Prepared website.

This page was prepared on 18 December 2019. It was last updated on 28 April 2024.