Accessibility statement
We are committed to reducing the barriers experienced by people with disabilities.
This accessibility statement applies to content published on the following domains:
These websites are managed by SNG (formerly Sovereign Housing Association), and are designed to be used by as many people as possible.
As of 17 October 2024, the www.sovereign.org.uk website is fully compliant to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 
AA Standards.
We are committed to continually improving the accessibility of our other websites which are partially compliant.
Integrated into our website is a third-party jobs portal, jobs.sovereign.org.uk/jobs , which is hosted by eArcu . Like our other websites, this site has been tested against W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 and is partially compliant.
These guidelines explain how to make websites more accessible and usable, which means everyone will find our website easier to use.
Our websites have been built using code compliant with W3C standards for HTML and CSS. This means our websites should display properly in current browsers and any future browsers.
The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:
- zoom in up to 300% without problems
- navigate most of the websites using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the websites using speech recognition software
- use most of the websites using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).
We're committed to making our websites easy to use and our sites have been created to be usable straight away. But you may get a better experience by customising them to suit your individual needs.
Our websites have accessibility and translation software. You can have the site text read aloud to you via our Recite Me toolbar , which you can find by clicking on the Accessibility tools button at the top of each webpage.
If you click on this link, the Recite Me toolbar will appear. It allows you to have the website content spoken to you, as well as being able to change the font size, the font and background colours, plus translating the website to another language.
You can find instructions for using the Recite Me toolbar in our user guide.
For videos and guides about how to customise your experience, visit the BBC's My Web, My Way . On that website, you can learn about your computer’s accessibility features and useful software you can install. These are known as assistive technologies.
AbilityNet also has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We know some parts of our websites are not fully accessible. You can see a list of any issues we currently know about below.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- PDFs and non-HTML documents - some documents are not accessible in several ways, including, missing text alternatives, missing document structure, and incorrect heading order. We are exploring ways to improve the accessibility of our documents but, in the meantime, if you find any that are hard to read, please contact us for an alternative.
- Some video content may not have captions or audio description but we try to ensure that transcripts are provided as an alternative option.
- Our websites include the use of online maps to show certain geographical information. These are not used for navigational purposes and are exempt under the regulations. If you require the information presented in an online map in a different format, please contact us and we will try our best to help.
- Some of our services include third party content which we have no control over, such as documents which are sent to us and uploaded, social sharing icons on blogs and play buttons on videos. The accessibility regulations do not require us to manage these kinds of content but, if you have a problem with any of the content hosted on our websites, please contact us and we will try our best to help.
- Some pages on our websites include temporary alerts that are designed to highlight important information to users. Alert headings may result in an illogical heading structure on these pages but users will still be able to find the information.
- Resizing text - we recommend using the Recite Me toolbar to resize text if you would like to make it bigger. This will prevent content from being obscured as the text increases.
- Forms - we're aware of certain issues with our online forms which may cause problems for some users. We're working to resolve these but in the meantime, please contact us if you need help to complete one of our forms.
If you find an issue that we have not identified, please contact us using one of the routes described in the ‘Reporting accessibility problems with this website’ section of this statement.
In February 2022, we asked Shaw Trust (a charity which support organisations to create an accessible environment, both digitally and physically) to independently assess the accessibility of our websites – including testing by users with a range of disabilities, some using assistive technologies. Their report then detailed any accessibility issues, so that we could make adjustments and improvements.
On 17 October 2024, our customer website - www.sovereign.org.uk - was awarded the Shaw Trust 'Accessible' rating by Shaw Trust Accessibility Services .
Using Shaw Trust's Maintained Subscription Service, we will continue to monitor updates and changes to the site and address any areas which need attention in continuing to meet the WCAG 2.2 AA standards, to ensure the accreditation remains valid.
Significant progress has been made on our other sites since they were tested and our work to continually improve is ongoing.
We're working with Shaw Trust and our developers to address the outstanding accessibility issues that were identified when the websites were originally tested in February 2022.
Notable progress has been made to date, including:
- Ensuring links are descriptive.
- Adding missing alt text to images.
- Resolving empty elements, duplicate IDs, ambiguous button labelling, empty headings and incorrect table coding, all of which make it easier for users with screen readers and other assistive technology to identify elements on a page.
- Improving heading structure where possible.
- Resolving issues with forms such as error handling and mandatory fields.
We will continue to work on the remaining issues so that our websites are accessible for as many people as possible.
Users can also customise their experience using the Recite Me toolbar, explained in more detail above.
If you're unable to access parts of our websites or need information in a different format, please contact us:
In your message, please include:
- the web address (URL) of the content
- your email address and name
- the format you need, for example, plain text, braille, BSL, large print.
We’ll get back to you as soon as possible and try our best to help.
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our websites. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, email digital@sovereign.org.uk.
To help us understand the problem, please tell us:
- the web address or title of the page where you found the problem
- what the problem is
- what computer and software you use
We'll get back to you as soon as possible and try our best to help resolve the issue promptly.