By Charlotte Webster-
Norfolk Council needs to improve its access to online services for disabled people, after a critical report laid bare major failings in the council to accommodate their needs in that respect.
Disabled people have been struggling to have access to vital online services, a charity has said.
Disability Equality charity have warned that the Norfolk County Council are failing in its duty to disabled people. The charity are putting pressure on Norfolk Council to raise the quality of their website, and make it easily accessible to disabled people, following several complaints about lack of access to the council’s online services to disabled people.
The complaint is being seen as falling under the basic rights of equality of treatment. Campaigners have pointed out that new legislation introduced by the British government imposes a duty to ensure local councils’ websites are accessible to people with disabilities, with the deadline for compliance on Friday, September 23.
Unless changes are put in place quickly, campaigners fear that across the country, “millions of disabled people could be being blocked from accessing vital online services”.
Kristina Barrick, head of digital influencing at Scope, said in a statement: “Our findings suggest many disabled taxpayers are still being shut out of accessing digital services.
“Public sector organisations provide crucial services. It’s worrying to see disabled people being forgotten about again.
“With local lockdowns on the rise across the UK, it is unacceptable that disabled people may be unable to access information about support.”
The charity’s research found Norfolk’s website ranked the second-highest for accessibility issues amount the top ten most populous counties in England.
The charity’s research also found that the blind or partially-sighted people, or those who do not use a mouse, cannot close the cookies control panel.
The council said that more than 4,000 documents on 3,000 webpages, were working with them to make the required changes to the site.
Andy Hall, head of digital inclusion, who tested the council’s websites, said: “We found a number of elements on there problematic.
“The critical thing with local authorities is you can’t just choose another one – you can always go and choose another supermarket.”
A council spokesman said: “We are grateful to Scope for sharing their results and we are already working with them to solve the six issues they raised, one of which has already been fixed.
“They also agreed, on review, that one of these issues did adhere to accessibility guidelines.
“We will continue to work with Scope and other groups to continually improve our website’s user experience for everyone.”