We’ve built our site with the aim of making it as accessible and as usable as possible. It is intended to conform to Priority Level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

This page lists some of the features that make the site easier to use and provides links to other resources.

Accessibility features

'Skip to' functions

‘Skip to’ functions provide links at the top of every page which allow users accessing this site with no styling to ‘skip’ to different sections within each page.

The skip to functions available on this site are:

• skip to main navigation
• skip to page content
• skip to search

Access keys

Access keys provide keyboard shortcuts to help users navigate this site using the keyboard.

This website uses a subset of the UK Government Access Key system:

1 = Home page

3 = Site map

4 = Search

5 = Frequently asked questions

6 = Using this site

8 = Terms and conditions

9 = Contact us

To use the access keys:

If you use Internet Explorer with Windows:

• Press and hold the 'Alt' key
• Press the required letter
• Release the keys and press the 'Enter' key

If you use Netscape Navigator or Firefox with Windows:

• Press and hold the 'Alt' key
• Press the required letter

If you use Internet Explorer with a Mac:

• Press and hold the 'Ctrl' key
• Press the required letter
• Release the keys and press the 'Enter' key

If you use Netscape 6 or Firefox with a Mac:

• Press and hold the 'Ctrl' key
• Press the required letter

Access keys are not supported by:

• Internet Explorer 4.5 for Mac
• Netscape versions earlier than 6

Adapting your screen

Resizing text

You can enlarge the text on this site:

Using Internet Explorer:

• Click on the ‘View’ drop-down menu
• Click on ‘Text size’
• Choose your preferred text size from the list

If the text is still not big enough:

• Click on the ‘Tools' drop-down menu
• Click on ‘Internet options’
• In the ‘General’ tab, click on ‘Accessibility’
• Select ‘Ignore font sizes on web pages’
• Click ‘OK’, then ‘OK’
• You should now be able to enlarge the text further using the method above

Using Netscape 6 or Firefox:

• Click on the ‘View’ drop down menu
• Click on ‘Text size’
• Choose your preferred text size from the list

Adapting your computer

This site gives detailed information on how to adapt your computer to your own preferences: My computer, my way. There’s good information on this BBC site too.

Standards compliance

This site has been built to standards:

• XHTML 1.0
• CSS 2.0

Some tables have been used within the site for data presentation.