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The Manchester Arena Inquiry has now concluded. The closure notice from the Inquiry Chairman is available here.

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Accessibility statement for Manchester Arena Inquiry

This accessibility statement applies to the Manchester Arena Inquiry website available at https://manchesterarenainquiry.org.uk/.

This website is run by the Manchester Arena Inquiry team. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • 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).

Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to adjust the contrast on this site, and in some areas (listed below) this may be problematic for visually-impaired users.

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. You can see a full list of any issues we currently know about in the Non-accessible content section of this statement.

Some sections of this website may not easily be navigated by disabled users. For example, this website uses a lot of PDFs to publish evidence and transcripts of the oral evidence hearings, which screen readers may not interpret clearly.

Also, the website uses dropdown menus in several places that may pose problems for assistive technology. For example, the Key Documents, Evidence and Covid-19 sections may be difficult for assistive technologies to interpret.

The Key Documents section of the website contains the following information:

  • transcripts of oral evidence hearings
  • the terms of reference
  • the Chairman’s directions, orders and rulings
  • restriction orders
  • protocols
  • reports
  • data protection information
  • guides to the Inquiry, such as a list of acronyms and information about inquiries in general
  • and information for witnesses

Many of these timetables, reference documents and evidence is presented in PDF format. Unless authored with accessibility in mind, PDF documents often have accessibility issues. Additionally, PDF documents are typically viewed using a separate application or plug-in and can thus cause confusion and navigation difficulties. If you require content to be supplied in an alternative format please contact pressoffice@manchesterarenainquiry.org.uk to arrange an alternative format.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille: email pressoffice@manchesterarenainquiry.org.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

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, you can:

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).

Compliance status

This website is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The ‘non-compliances’ are listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Principle 1 – Perceivable

Text Alternatives

The logo (homepage link) does not have suitable alternative text, and the social buttons in the footer do not have any alternative text to let users know what they are for and where they go. We are working to fix these by adding alternative text under this non-text content. It should be fixed before June 2021.

Adaptable

Heading levels are not nested sequentially and in some places are out of order. We hope to have this fixed before June 2021.

The PDF files of the hearing transcripts are presented in a two-column layout and they are not tagged so a screen reader will not understand the layout and read each line straight across, ignoring column breaks. If you require the PDFs to be provided in a more accessible format, please get in touch with the Inquiry using the contact details above and we will consider your request.

The Inquiry makes recordings of its open hearings available on YouTube.

Contrast

The orange of the word ‘Inquiry’ in our logo does not meet minimum contrast levels against a white background, which may be hard to see for visually-impaired users.

Similarly, some buttons are orange on light orange or have faint yellow outlines when in focus, which falls below the minimum contrast threshold and may not be easily seen by users with low vision. These buttons are:

  • social buttons,
  • the ‘read more’ buttons,
  • PDF download buttons,

We are looking into this and hope to have fixed it before June 2021.

Principle 2 – Operable

Keyboard accessibility

Not all of the content is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes. The filters on the search functions are not usable without a mouse, so keyboard-only users will not be able to make full use of this function. We are looking into fixing these problems and hope to have them fixed by June 2021.

In the meantime, we recommend using more search terms in the search box, as well as search operators to focus searches. If you are having trouble finding a document, please get in touch with us using the contact information above.

Navigability

There is no ‘skip to content’ link on the site. This means a keyboard-only user would have to tab through the navigation on every page to access content in the main page body. Because the navigation is so long, this adds over 25 unnecessary keypresses to every page visit and inconveniences users. We are looking into this and hope to have it fixed before June 2021.

Some links cannot be determined from the link alone or the link text together with its programmatically determined link context. Some multiple links use non-meaningful and duplicated link text (e.g. ‘here’), which inconveniences screen readers. We are trying to promote best practice by using more descriptive link text for all links and we will have this fixed by June 2021.

Many controls do not have a visible focus indicator, meaning that keyboard-only users would have difficulty accessing those parts of the site.

Input modalities

The search box and the document search function elsewhere on the site do not have a search label that is usable by voice controls. We are looking into fixing this and hope to have it fixed by June 2021.

Principle 3 – Understandable

Consistent navigation

In the top navigation bar, when tabbing forwards through items, the tab order goes through sub-navigation entries as well. However, when tabbing through items in reverse the sub-navigation entries are not in the focus order. This may cause confusion to users who expect the navigation to have the same elements in both directions. We are trying to fix this and hope to have done so by June 2021.

Input assistance

The search button does not have an associated text label. Neither do the social buttons have text labels that can be either read aloud by a screen reader or activated with voice controls.

Principle 4 – Robust

Compatible

The online validator tool identified some parsing errors on the website. We are looking into these and hope to have them fixed by June 2021.

If you find an issue that we have yet to identify, please contact us using one of the routes described in the ‘Reporting accessibility problems with this website’ section of this statement.

Disproportionate burden

At this time, we have not made any disproportionate burden claims.

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

We do not plan to make any live audio and video streamed by the Inquiry accessible, because this is exempt from the accessibility regulations. All of our hearings are transcribed, and those transcripts are uploaded to the website. If you require an accessible alternative, please get in touch.

At this time, we have not identified any other content that is not within scope of the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 16 March 2021. It was last reviewed on 16 March 2021. It will next be reviewed in July 2021.

This website was last tested on 12-15 March, 2021.Testing was carried out by the Home Office. We tested the service based on a user’s ability to complete key journeys. All parts of the chosen journeys were tested, including documents. Journeys were chosen on a number of factors including usage statistics, risk assessments and subject matter.