Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to gov.scot.

This website is run by the Scottish Government.

It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. You should be able to:

• use your web browser to change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 200% without loss of information
• 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)
• access the website using a mobile or tablet.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know that some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

• most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• at magnification of 200%, the menu button is not functional using the keyboard

Feedback and contact information

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, contact: website@gov.scot with details of the problem you have encountered.

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Scottish Government is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some document formats such as PDF, MS Word and Excel may not be fully accessible. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Disproportionate burden

We are not claiming that any of our accessibility issues are disproportionate to fix.

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

PDFs and office file formats

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.

Where documents are updated and new PDF documents published, they will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Recent audits have identified a significant number of PDFs that do not meet accessibility guidelines.

As part of our work to improve the accessibility of this website, we are reviewing our policy on PDFs and other methods of delivering information with a view to making them as accessible as possible.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 12 February 2024.

Accessibility tests by the Government Digital Service and Cabinet Office to check against WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria were carried out on 23 August 2023.

The tools used to carry out this test were:

We are currently implementing changes based on this test and will update this page with new information about the improvements we make.