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Council services over the festive period

Disproportionate burden assessments

We are required by law to carry out disproportionate burden assessments where we are not able to meet our legal obligation to reach the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard:

Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit form

This assessment relates to the Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit online application which is a third party form available from the main website (www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk).

Benefits

Here is how making this form accessible would benefit our users:

  • The form would be available and accessible to all users
  • Easier access to council's online services

Burden

Our assessment of the burden of making this form accessible is that:

  • Our old form which was also created by a third party is no longer available as our contract with the supplier has ended
  • We need to make sure that we provide a way of applying for Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit to our users and we cannot have a period of time when the service is paused as people wishing to apply might be in a difficult financial situation
  • We provide contact details for anyone requiring assistance with their application
  • We discussed the accessibility issues with the supplier and they are committed to fixing them by a certain date (we are waiting for them to confirm the date)
  • We have estimated that it would take 6 weeks of IT time and cost us around £10,000 to temporarily replace the form while it is being fixed by the supplier

Our organisation’s size and resources

Aberdeenshire Council is a local authority and due to competing priorities, the resources available to tackle outstanding accessibility issues are limited.

Most of the development work on the website is done in house by our IT team. While we do and can address accessibility issues, the resources required to address many of them in a short period of time would mean resources would need to be diverted from maintaining essential services and continuing current development.

Assessment

Having considered the estimated effort involved in temporarily replacing the form, along with the commitment from the supplier to make the current form accessible, we have concluded that the work involved in rebuilding it by our IT would be a poor use of staff time. This represents a disproportionate burden to the organisation in terms of cost and time.

Documents supplied by the public and other organisations

This assessment relates to documents that are supplied to us by other organisations (when we didn't commission or pay for them) and by members of the public.

Benefits

Here is how making these documents accessible would benefit our users:

  • They would be fully accessible to all users
  • If converted to HTML they would be more easily searchable

Burden

Our assessment of the burden of making these documents into an accessible format is that:

  • Each document would require several hours of work to be recreated in a fully accessible version (estimated based on extensive experience of converting the active documents at between 2 and 30 hours (£28 to £420) per document, depending on length and complexity)
  • These documents were created by 3rd parties and publishing an updated version would mean altering content that isn’t ours
  • Many of the documents contain complex elements which are difficult to retrospectively convert, such as detailed tables, graphs, and diagrams
  • Interest in some of these documents is low
  • We always have and will assist with seeking an accessible version on request

Our organisation’s size and resources

Aberdeenshire Council is a local authority and due to competing priorities, the resources available to tackle outstanding accessibility issues are limited.

Our web team consists of 2 FTE. While we offer support and guidance on making documents accessible to other teams across the council, the resources required to fix these document or convert them to HTML would mean resources would need to be diverted from updating and maintaining information about essential council services available from the main website.

Assessment

We consider that the costs of converting each document where there is little evidence of demand would be a poor use of limited staff time and would represent a disproportionate burden on the organisation in terms of cost and time.