Equality of Opportunity Committee

Accessibility of Information

1. The Committee considered the accessibility of published documents for visually impaired people at its 2 July 2008 meeting. The item had been remitted to Committee following correspondence from DeafBlind UK.

2. The Committee received a paper and oral evidence from DeafBlind UK which can be accessed from the webpage:

http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-committees/bus-committees-third1/bus-committees-third-eoc-home/bus-committees-third-eoc-agendas.htm

3. Prior to the Committee meeting, the Chair asked DeafBlind UK to look at the accessibility of the National Assembly for Wales’ website. During the discussion in Committee, DeafBlind UK made the following specific points about the NAfW website:

• the website meets W3C standards in part but there is room for improvement;

• the accessibility option is not part of the main navigation bar;

• there is no option for a plain layout;

• there are no options for accessing information through audio formats;

• we do not ask for feedback on the accessibility of the site;

• the Welsh Assembly Government website is more accessible .

4. DeafBlind UK also stressed the importance of providing clear print as opposed to large print, and agreed to send the Committee details of the 14 alternative formats in which they offer their own materials to their members.

Recommendations

5. The Committee decided to take a number of actions, including:

• write to the Assembly Commission to highlight areas for improvement on the website;

• write to the Minister for Social Justice and Local Government requesting information about how many of the Welsh local authorities have an accessible information policy and what they contain;

• write to the Minister for Health and Social Services asking for the same information in respect to the Welsh health authorities and local health boards.

6. It was also agreed that the Report would be sent to the i-change internal cross party group who are considering the future technological needs of the Assembly.

7. Members of the Committee agreed to revisit this issue later in the year when the above additional information had been received and to potentially undertake further investigations of accessible information policies with the private sector in the future.

Ann Jones AM
Chair, Equality of Opportunity Committee

July 2008