Accessibility Statement for Social Security Scotland’s website

This accessibility statement applies to www.socialsecurity.gov.scot. This website is run by Social Security Scotland. 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 using browser or device settings
• zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using a keyboard or 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:

1. Some images including the logo are missing unique ID attribute or alt text.
2. Some links do not make sense out of context.

Feedback and contact information

If you cannot access any part of this site or want to report an accessibility problem, email the Communications team. If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, get in touch.

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

Social Security Scotland 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.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Across the site we identified some of the following accessibility problems. Below is a breakdown of the issues. Some of the issues are site wide, others are page specific.

1. “Read more” links on the site are not associated with any meaning, making it is more difficult for screenreader users to understand what the “read more” links relate to. Read more links appear throughout the site but are used more on the homepage and guidance and resources pages. WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In context)
2. Across the site, form fields are not always grouped semantically correctly. Either legends have not been correctly applied along with the fieldset attribute or form fields have not been grouped together. 1.3.1 Info & Relationships and 4.1.2 Name, role and value
3. Within the 'Jobs' section an image is used to represent a number of logos and this image does not have any alt text. The logos are Disability Confident Employer, Living Wage Employer, Carer Positive Employer in Scotland: Exemplary, Civil Service Commission and Recruit with Conviction. WCAG 1.1.1 Text Alternatives
4. On the 'Third Party Requests' page, the forms create barriers as the labels are not associated with the form fields. This particularly affects assistive technology users when completing these forms. This issue affects all forms on this page. We also found that hint text which is visually associated with a form field is not communicated to assistive technologies at the same time. Screenreader users will need to read this text using the down arrow to get this information. WCAG 1.3.1 Info & Relationships
5. Within the 'Publications' page filters, the filter sections are not semantically marked up as headings, making it harder for screenreader users to navigate this section. In addition, the two date labels 'Published Before' and 'Published After' are not associated with the date fields, making it very difficult for screenreader users to correctly input dates. WCAG 1.3.1 Info & Relationships
6. There are some instances across the site where heading levels are not sequentially presented. This is usually where one or two heading levels have been skipped. In other cases, headings were missing altogether. WCAG 1.3.1 Info & Relationships
7. The PDFs across the site are currently not accessible. Content is not marked up correctly meaning they are more difficult to navigate and read for people who use screenreaders and keyboards to access content. We will be updating the PDFs to make them more accessible, starting with the ones that receive the most downloads.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 13 December 2023. It was last reviewed on 6 January 2025.

This website was last tested on 30 November 2023.

The test was carried out by The Social Security Programme Management and Delivery Division – Social Security Directorate. The website was assessed against the Web Content Accessibility guidelines 2.1 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/)

This followed notice from the UK Government Accessibility Monitoring team  who had performed a simple audit and found the site to be inaccessible. One of their recommendations was that a full audit was completed – which has been done. 

The test was conducted using automated test tools, various assistive technologies as well manually testing the site.