Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to nationalarchives.gov.uk, beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk, discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk and secure.nationalarchives.gov.uk. It does not include services listed in the ‘Services not covered by this statement’ section, which have their own statements.

The domains covered by this Accessibility Statement are run by The National Archives.

Accessibility and inclusion are important to everyone at The National Archives and we want as many people as possible to be able to use our online services. The text should be clear and easy to understand. You should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using just a mouse and on-screen 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)

How accessible is this website?

Some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Most older PDF documents, including scans of documents from our collection, and scanned correspondence provided in support of Freedom of Information responses, are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
  • Some of the video clips embedded on the website do not have captions.
  • The image viewer in our online catalogue, Discovery, is not fully keyboard accessible.

Specific non-compliances are listed below.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, for example accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or Braille, email webmaster@nationalarchives.gov.uk or call 020 8876 3444. We will respond to your request within 10 working days.

You can also use these contact details to report accessibility problems with this website.

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 are 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 National Archives 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 and exemptions listed below:

Non-accessible content

Based on sample testing of pages selected by our user experience and metrics teams, we know that the content listed below is non-compliant with the accessibility regulations for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  1. Some headings not marked up correctly for screen reader users (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A))
  2. Some content has not been marked up correctly to inform screen reader users of interactions (Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A))
  3. Some pages contain links that are non-descriptive (Success Criterion 2.4.9 Link Purpose (Link Only) (Level A))
  4. Images on some pages are missing descriptive alt text attributes (Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A))
  5. Navigation elements, non-focusable interactive element and tablists on some pages have incorrect Aria attributes (Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A))
  6. Some pages include non-dismissible animations (Success Criterion 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (Level A))
  7. Some pages do not contain correct Aria attributes and have information and selected elements that are only visually conveyed (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A))
  8. Some links and inputs do not have accessible names. (Success Criterion 2.5.3 Label in Name (Level A) and Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A))
  9. Some error messages do not identify the correct input. (Success Criterion: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) and 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A))
  10. Some elements include non-descriptive labels, duplicated headings and identically labeled buttons (Success Criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA))
  11. Elements on some pages fail the non-text contrast requirement (Success Criterion 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (Level AA))
  12. Text on some pages fails the minimum colour contrast requirements (Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA))
  13. Some interactive elements contain text as an image (Success Criterion 1.4.5 Images of Text (Level AA)).
  14. There are links to PDFs and other non-HTML content that do not inform the user of the file type (Success Criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose [In Context])
  15. On the Advisory Council File list page, there is a table missing headers (Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships)
  16. Footnote links on the Advisory Council Terms of reference page do not receive keyboard focus and become invisible when receiving hover. This fails several success criteria.
  17. On the Contact us page the ‘Offline’ image next to the ‘Live Chat’ heading is an image of text (Success Criterion 1.4.5: Images of Text)
  18. The image viewer controls in Discovery are not fully keyboard accessible (Success Criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard)
  19. Some ID attributes are duplicated in Discovery, for example different forms on the same page, having inputs that share an ID attribute (Success Criterion: 4.1.1 Parsing)
  20. Incorrect use of list attribute in Discovery (Success Criterion: 4.1.1 Parsing)
  21. Some pages do not describe the human language they contain (Success Criterion 3.1.1: Language of Page)
  22. Some pages have a ‘Skip to content’ link to a non-existent page fragment (Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships)

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable.

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

Services not covered by this Statement

The following subdomains, websites and website sections are not covered by this Accessibility Statement because they are developed and maintained by third-parties: Image Library, Shop, UK Government Web Archive and Caselaw.

The website was tested, based on key user journeys, in 2019, 2021 and 2024 by the Digital Accessibility Centre. It was also tested in-house using the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE), Google Lighthouse and our best professional judgement.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on Monday 17 August 2020. It was last reviewed on Tuesday 14 January 2025.