Accessibility Statement
This website is run by the Central Office of Information, the government's executive agency for publicity procurement.
This page states our intention that our website is usable and accessible to all users and details some of the measures taken. This website's objective are to conform to the Guidelines for UK government websites, which support the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, Level AA, to ensure a Web accessibility standard have been achieved and are maintained.
This accessibility statement applies only to the Central Office of Information website at www.coi.gov.uk. This policy does not apply to any other site, including:
- Other websites operated by or for COI
- Other government departments and agencies
- Any site that is linked from one of our pages
Access keys
The UK Government Access Keys Standard has been applied to this site. These provide a keyboard shortcut for users wishing to go directly to specific parts of the site and help those who do not use a pointing device, such as a mouse. A subset of the standard has been used and the access keys are defined as follows:
S - Skip navigation
1 - Home page
3 - Site map
4 - Search this site
5 - Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
6 - Help accessing our website
9 - Feedback about this website
0 - Access keys used on this website
How to use access keys
Access keys work slightly differently depending on which browser and type of computer you are using - this is a summary of the main different ways:
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 on a PC, press 'alt' and the access key character at same time
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 on a PC, press 'alt' and the access key character at the same time, then press the enter key
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 on an Apple Macintosh, press 'control' and the access key character at the same time
- This accessibility initiative is also supported by Netscape 6; use the 'alt' key on a PC, or the 'ctrl' key on an Apple Macintosh
Alternative text
All images on this site are accompanied by a brief alternative text which where appropriate identifies an image or its function. This alternative text (alt-text) is generally only visible when the browser's automatic image loading feature is turned off.
Links
All text links are written so that they make sense when read out of context.
PDFs
Most complex Adobe® Acrobat® Portable Document Format (PDF) files on this site added after December 2004 are tagged to allow basic accessibility; previous PDFs will be tagged as resources allow, or on request, in 2006. Simple PDFs should not represent an accessibility problem.
For more information about PDF accessibility see the Adobe website accessibility section.
For more help with Acrobat files generally and a link to download Acrobat Reader see the site help page.
Text size
The text on this website has been styled using a non-fixed value in a style sheet. This means that users can easily change the text size using their browser settings.
More help
For more information and help about changing your browser settings please visit the BBC's My Web My Way pages.