Accessibility statement for the Royal Air Force

This accessibility statement applies to www.raf.mod.uk only. 

It does not include:

This website is run by the Royal Air Force. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 200% 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 (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Some image alt text is missing or incorrect
  • Most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • You cannot pause the autoplay video on mobile devices
  • Our history timeline is not keyboard accessible, and does not meet colour contrast guidelines
  • Captions are missing from videos

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: [email protected].

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 this website’s accessibility

The RAF is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

  • Some image alt text is missing or incorrect.
  • Most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Auto-play for video on mobile devices
  • Our History timeline is difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, there is no keyboard or focus indicator.
  • Video captions need to be added

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Image alt text
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add text alternatives for all non decorative images by the end of 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

PDFs
Most PDFs are not accessible for screen readers. We plan to carry out an audit of PDFs on the site by the end of 2020, with the view to fixing or replacing them with accessible HTML pages in 2021.

Auto-play video
You cannot pause videos that auto-play on mobile devices. This fails 2.2.2 Pause, stop, hide (Level A). We plan to fix this by the end of 2020.

Disproportionate burden

History timeline
Our History Timeline is difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, there is no keyboard or focus indicator.

Text, and link text does not meet colour contrast guidelines. We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We are currently waiting for the 3rd party software provider to develop a new accessible version. 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Pre-recorded time-based video streams are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. We do however plan to add captions to these.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23.09.2020. It was last reviewed on 23.09.2020.

This website was last tested on 23.09.2020. The test was carried out by Binary Vision.

Binary Vision selected all tests relevant to all content templates on the RAF website using Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1. All relevant tests were performed for each of the following pages: