Accessibility statement for Explore education statistics

This accessibility statement applies to the explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk website. This website is run by the Department for Education (DfE) (opens in a new tab). This statement does not cover any other services run by the Department for Education (DfE) or GOV.UK.

How you should be able to use this website

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. You should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet (opens in a new tab) has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

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

  • some buttons and links are not descriptive enough
  • some errors are not automatically read back to the screen reader
  • some tables are missing a visible focus, making them difficult to navigate by keyboard
  • some graphics used to convey information have poor colour contrast

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page, need information in a different format, or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us:

In your message, include:

  • the web address (URL) of the content

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) (opens in a new tab).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

The Department for Education (DfE) 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 (opens in a new tab) AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons. We will address these issues during our public beta phase to ensure our content is accessible.

  1. Some publication pages have multiple help buttons and form labels with the same title. This means it is difficult for screen reader users to distinguish out of context what the titles are relating to. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) success criterion 2.4.6 (understanding headings and labels).
  2. On the find statistics page, if a search term has been entered with fewer than three characters, the resulting error dialog isn't automatically read back by the screen reader. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) success criterion 4.1.3 (understanding status messages).
  3. On publication pages with embedded data, tables are missing focus indicators. This means it is difficult to navigate tables of data using a keyboard alone. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) success criterion 2.4.7 (understanding focus visible)
  4. On publication pages with embedded charts, some colour elements used to distinguish different ranges of results have low contrast. This means it may be difficult for some low vision users to decipher. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) success criterion 1,4,11 (understanding non-text contrast).

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 12 March 2024 against Accessibility Guidelines WCAG2.2 (opens in a new tab).

The test was carried out by the Digital accessibility centre (DAC) (opens in a new tab).

DAC tested a sample of pages to cover the core functionality of the service including:

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We plan to continually test the service for accessibility issues, and are working through a prioritised list of issues to resolve.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 4 December 2019. It was last reviewed on 1 July 2024.

This website was last tested in March 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. This test of a representative sample of pages was carried out by the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC).

We also used findings from our own testing when preparing this accessibility statement.