Accessibility Statement for The London School of Economics

This accessibility statement applies to www.lse.ac.uk and info.lse.ac.uk.

This website is run by LSE. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Navigate most of the website using just your keyboard
  • Zoom by up to 275% on a desktop or laptop computer without text spilling off screen
  • Listen to most of the website content using a screen reader
  • Start, stop and control the volume of video and audio content using the keyboard

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

 

How accessible this site is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Some elements are not keyboard accessible, and there are issues with keyboard focus
  • Some content may not be easy for screen readers to process correctly
  • Images are not consistently labelled with descriptive alt text
  • Videos do not have audio description
  • Audio streams do not have transcripts
  • Older documents may not be compliant with accessibility standards
  • Downloadable PDF documents may not be accessible with screen readers
  • Downloadable PDF documents may not include titles
  • Some forms may not include clear titles and links
  • Some forms may not have sufficient colour contrast

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, you can email LSE’s Digital Communications Team. We’ll get back to your request in 5 to 10 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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 the Digital Communications Team.

Complaints

If you have reported a problem with our website, or asked for an alternative format, but you are not happy with our response, you can contact our Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) team to register your difficulty. This helps us improve our service.

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

LSE 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 2.1 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

  • Some PDF’s do not include titles in their meta description, making it harder for users to identify content. This fails Success Criterion 2.4.2: Page Titled. We are currently planning a timeframe for updating old PDF documents on the LSE website (for PDFs published after 23 September 2018 and essential documents) and guidance on preparing new PDF documents.
  • Some forms do not include titles in their meta description, making it harder for users to identify content. This fails WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.2 Page Titled. We aim to fix this issue by late August 2022.
  • Some forms have links which are not accessible by screen readers or are not descriptive enough to tell a user where the link will take them. This fails WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) and WCAG Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. We aim to fix these issues by late August 2022.
  • Some forms may have elements which do not have sufficient colour contrast, making it harder for users to differentiate between foreground and background elements. This fails WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum). We aim to fix these issues by late August 2022.

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix this PDF of a programme for a conference in 2016.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 August 2022. It was last reviewed on 16 August 2022.

This website was last tested on 15 August 2022. The test was carried out by the Cabinet Office. The test sampled a sampling of pages across the lse.ac.uk and info.lse.ac.uk websites.