Accessibility

"Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us... We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded that we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals, and communication is the way we can bring this about." - Louis Braille

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee

Websites should be equally accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities, people using older web browsers, and people using small screens or new technologies such as WAP. Designing websites with accessibility in mind benefits everyone, not just disabled people. Find out more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Can you use our website easily?

If you have difficulty reading these pages (for example, if you find the words too small to read), you should be able to increase the font size and alter the colors as you need to by changing your browser options or preferences. The Better Payment Practice website has a good accessibility page explaining some of the ways you can improve accessibility with different Web browsers.

We have tried to make this site accessible

This site is built with a technique called cascading style sheets (CSS) to make it as accessible as possible for as many users as possible, including people with disabilities. It should work in any browser, at any screen resolution, with any size of any font. It has been tested on a wide range of different browsers, including Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, and the text-only Lynx browser used by many disabled people.

Access keys

If you cannot use a mouse, you should be able to navigate around this site using your tab key. With up-to-date Web browsers, the main pages are also accessible using the "access keys" system:

ALT + 0: Home page
ALT + 1: Start here!
ALT + 2: Background
ALT + 3: Press
ALT + 4: News
ALT + 5: Take action
ALT + 6: Links
ALT + 7: About us
ALT + 8: Contact us

This means you can quickly browse the bulk of the site by pressing ALT and the number keys in turn.

Please tell us if you have problems

We hope our site works easily for you. If you find anything that causes problems for you or you would like to make suggestions for how we can improve accessibility, please do let us know.