Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to patchworkhub.org.

Patchwork Hub is committed to making this website as accessible as possible. As a social enterprise led by disabled people, accessibility and inclusion are core to our mission. We believe digital accessibility is a right, not a privilege. Therefore, we strive for our website, communications, content and services to meet and exceed accessibility standards.

Our site is developed to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 Level AA and we are striving to be technically compliant to Level AAA. These guidelines are the internationally recognised benchmark for building accessible websites. We keep the site under review to improve both its accessibility and usability.

How accessible this website is

This website is run by Patchwork Hub Ltd. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. We have built our website to be accessible with common assistive technologies and different ways of using websites. 

This website is partially conformant with Level AA/AAA, which means that most of the website meets the requirements for Level AA accessibility. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colour schemes and fonts using browser or device settings
• zoom in to increase text size 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 tried to make website text as simple as possible to understand.

If you need further help in making the web easier to use, including our website, AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Some parts of the website do not fully meet the requirements for Level AA/AAA accessibility:

• You cannot modify the line height or spacing of the text
• Client PDF documents, attached to job descriptions are external to Patchwork Hub and may not be fully accessible to screen reader software  
• Some of our online forms may be difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• You cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• In some areas, different parts of text aren’t correctly labelled to show if they are headings or body text. This may make it less accessible for users with screen readers to know what section of text they are hearing.
• There’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘Contact’ page
  

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please get in touch by using our website feedback form.

If you would prefer to reach out via email instead, please contact [email protected]

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• Email - [email protected]
• Call - 020 3916 5773
  
  

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

Compliance status

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

Non accessible content

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Written accessibility of external job descriptions

Please be advised that most job descriptions on our platform have been written and provided by external organisations. Content in these job descriptions may therefore not achieve WCAG written content requirements, particularly in terms of readability and content consistency. 

If you encounter any content that you believe is not aligned with or breaches our guidelines, please contact us at [email protected].

External job applications

Sometimes employers’ internal procedures require them to accept applications on their own company’s or third-party websites rather than our platform. Because of this, we are unable to guarantee the accessibility of these websites. Having said this, no candidate should be unable to complete an application due to an accessibility barrier on a third-party website. We, therefore, ask that the candidate let us know by either reporting the job post or getting in touch directly via our contact form so that we can notify the employer. 

PDF readability guidelines

To ensure that PDFs on our website are accessible to users, these have been professionally remediated (March 2024). Remediation involves the process of tagging digital elements in PDF documents so that they can be read using assistive technologies.

After conducting seven WCAG 2.2 AAA checks on our Employer Services brochure, we have been advised that the only test failure relates to the readability score of this PDF. The reading level in the document has been assessed at ages 14 to 18 rather than the lower age requirement of 11 to 14 years for WCAG 2.2 AAA compliance.

We are aware of this and will be working towards producing an easier-to-read PDF with an accompanying glossary and help page on our website specific to unusual words, abbreviations, and pronunciation within these documents.

Disproportionate burden

Written accessibility of external job descriptions

As mentioned in the ‘non accessible content’ section, the majority of job descriptions advertised on Patchwork Hub have been written and provided by external organisations advertising their vacancies. Owing to differences in the way that these are produced by external organisations, written content in job descriptions may not adhere to WCAG guidelines.

We’ve assessed this in relation to accessing the information required and believe that resolving this issue would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. 

We will continue to encourage and work with organisations to follow guidelines for accessible communications and will in the future look to standardise the way in which jobs are posted to prevent textual accessibility issues.  

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

For Patchwork Hub, ensuring that our platform is as accessible and inclusive as possible is important to us.

To improve our website’s accessibility we enlisted the professional support of the Shaw Trust Accessibility Services to conduct a Digital Accessibility Assessment in October 2023.

Their Digital Accessibility Assessment is defined as ‘a rigorous testing process that thoroughly examines the accessibility of digital services. It incorporates website accessibility testing on mobile and/or tablet devices as well as on desktop computers.’

Making accessibility improvements to our website based on the recommendations provided, Patchwork Hub’s website was then re-tested by the Shaw Trust team on 7th May 2024. 

We’re also working on creating a roadmap for how and when we plan to improve accessibility on our website. We’ll be updating this and publishing it as soon as we can.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared and published on 9th May 2024. It was last reviewed on 9th May 2024.

This website was last tested for accessibility on 7th May 2024.

The test was carried out by Shaw Trust Accessibility Services. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools and a further manual audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.