Accessibility statement for the Financial Ombudsman Service website

This accessibility statement covers the following sites and sub-domains:

• https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk 
• https://sme.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
• https://cmc.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
• https://help.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/
• https://financialombudsman.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/
  FinancialOmbudsmanServiceLink

This website is run by the Financial Ombudsman Service and is designed to be compatible with a range of assistive software, including screen readers like JAWS and NVDA, and speech recognition software. We want our website to be accessible to as many people as possible. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a 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)
• use ReciteMe accessibility tool bar to customise our site in a way that works for you

We aim to make our website text as straightforward and simple as possible. To help support our commitment to clear communications, we’re a member of the Plain Language Commission and our website has been accredited the Clear English Standard.

Get help changing your computer settings 

There are lots of things you can do on your computer to make web pages more accessible. For example, you can:

• magnify your screen
• change text size and colours
• make your mouse easier to use
• use screen readers and talking browsers

If you need help doing these things, you’ll find clear and helpful guidance on AbilityNet.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of these websites are not fully accessible:

Our online complaint forms

• Some headings, labels and messages are not descriptive
• There’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our complaint forms
• Images lack alternative text leaving their purpose unknown to screen reader users.
• The “Add files” button lacks a label which can pose problems for assistive technology users.
• Skip links to navigate to the main form content are missing from the forms.

Our job application portal

• There are some issues with labelling mark-up and order of some of the page content and buttons
• Some links and buttons are not descriptive
• There are some issues with keyboard only highlighting which makes it difficult to identify links that are in focus.
• There are issues with the colour contrast on some links

Embedded data visualisations

Interactive elements inside the data charts and the scroll bar that appears when the size of the page is adjusted are not accessible.

Links in the footer

Some links in our website footer are not descriptive. 

PDFs in our online decisions database

The PDF documents published within our decisions database are not fully accessible.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, such as an audio recording, large print or braille, please email our accessibility team or call our helpline on 0800 023 4567 – we’ll do our best to meet your needs.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please contact our Communications team.

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, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

The Financial Ombudsman Service 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

These websites have been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 AA Standard.

These websites are partially compliant with the  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 AA standard, due to the following non-compliances and exemptions listed below. 

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Our online complaint form for professional representatives

Our online complaint forms provide a key way for people to submit complaints to us in a structured format. The forms are structured in a way which ensures we receive the information we need from a professional representative to be able to decide if it’s a complaint we can help with.

Our online form for professional representatives has a few accessibility issues which we’re aiming to fix by September 2024:

• Visual headings are not labelled as a heading to a screen reader user. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 4.1.3 (Status messages)
• Some fields are using the aria label incorrectly. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)
• The character count is placed inside a label field and doesn’t convey itself correctly to a screen reader user. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 4.1.3 (Status Messages)
• The form doesn’t have a ‘skip to main content’ link, so screen reader users won’t be able to skip straight to the main content. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks)
• The labels for some of the input fields are not descriptive, so screen reader users may not understand the purpose of them and what they need to add. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels)
• The focus indicator for the submit button fails to meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.11 (non-text contrast)
•  Some labels and text fail to meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum))
• The questions can split over two lines when the form is magnified to 400% using the browser zoom functionality. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow)
• The error messages in the form are non-descriptive. It doesn’t let the screen reader user know that the error message has appeared or what is needed to fix the errors.  This issue fails WCAG success criteria 4.1.3 (Status Messages) and 3.3.3 (Error Suggestion)

Our other online complaint forms

There are three remaining accessibility issues with our other online complaint forms (this covers our form for financial products and services, payment protection insurance (PPI), packaged bank accounts and complaints about claims management companies).

The forms are provided and hosted by a third party, Egress. We have been working with Egress to improve the accessibility of our forms – and they have made product improvements to ensure people using assistive software can use the forms as intended.

These complaint forms were not reviewed against WCAG 2.2 AA as we were planning to upgrade them in August 2024 to address the issue found in our previous accessibility audit. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, we’ve had to rescheduled this and are now aiming to have the new versions of our online forms live by September 2024, which we intend to be WCAG 2.2 AA compliant.

• Images lack alternative text leaving their purpose unknown to screen reader users – this issue fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
• The “Add files” button lacks a label which can pose problems for assistive technology users – this issue fails WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 4.1.2 (Name, Role and Value)
• Skip links to navigate to the main form content are missing from the forms – this issue fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks)

Other ways of bringing a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service include calling us on our helpline and we can take details over the phone or arrange to send a form in a different format. More information about how to contact us to make a complaint is available on our contact us page.

Our job application portal

Our job application portal provides a key way for people to view current job vacancies and to apply for employment with the organization. Our end to end recruitment processes use third-party software and we are working with our supplier to scope and fix the accessibility issues highlighted by our most recent accessibility testing.

• Visual headings are not labelled as a heading to a screen reader user. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 4.1.3 (Status messages)
• Some links are non-descriptive. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose)
• The text on some buttons doesn’t accurately describe what the button does. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels)
• Images lack alternative text leaving their purpose unknown to screen reader users. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
• Some links include text with poor colour contrast to its background. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.2 (Contract (Minimum))
• The focus isn’t clear on the links in the navigation menu. A non-sighted user may struggle to see where the focus is placed on the page. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.7 (Focus Visible).

We are currently working with our supplier on a series of updates to fix these issues by March 2025. The system will be tested as part of our regular programme of accessibility testing, to check that amendments made have resolved the issues identified in the previous round of testing.

Links in the footer

Some links in our footer uses abbreviations and are not descriptive. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose). We’re working with our supplier to fix this by October 2024.

Our data visualisations

We publish data visualisations to offer an alternative way for people to engage with our data. We use software provided by a third-party supplier to create and host data visualisations. They are unable to provide a timeline for the following accessibility issues and as a result, we are currently seeking a new supplier of this feature and plan for this to be in place in the first half of 2025.

• The cookie banner inside the data visualisations and the horizontal scroll bar that appears when the size of the page is adjusted are not accessible. Keyboard only and screen reader users may find it difficult to navigate and access the content. This issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 2.4.3 (Focus Order) and 2.1.1 (Keyboard)

In the meantime to assist with accessibility issues associated with charts and other data visualisations, and as recommended by our accessibility auditor, we hide the embedded iframes from screen readers and provide the displayed data in an alternative format (Excel).

Disproportionate burden

We use a series of systems to publish PDF versions of the final decision letters that are contained in the decisions database on our website. The PDF documents published in the database are not fully accessible to screen reader software. Specifically:

• our logo isn’t marked as an image in these documents and has no alt text. Users are not made aware of the presence of the image or the meaning of the image – this issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content)
• there are no tags on these PDFs meaning that screen reader users may struggle to navigate the contents of the page and understand the relationship between text, headings and list data – this issue fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels)

The decisions database is a key source of information for all website users. It shows all the final decisions we’ve issued since 1 April 2013. Publishing final decisions allows businesses and consumers to learn from our previous decisions and provides transparency to our work. There are therefore clear benefits of the system being accessible to people using assistive software.

Despite these benefits, we believe that complying with the accessibility requirement in the Regulations to deal with the issues listed above would impose a disproportionate burden on the Financial Ombudsman. 

To make all our currently published decision PDFs compliant with the accessibility requirement would mean significant changes. That would involve development work across several systems, instead of being changes that could be made quickly and discretely.

We are, however, continuing to look at options on how we can make the documents accessible in the future.  For example, whilst we consider that making all PDFs currently published in our online decisions database compatible with screen reader software would amount to a disproportionate burden, we are currently exploring the possibility of making PDF final decisions published after September 2024 more compatible with screen reader software.

We can make specific decision documents available in alternative formats on request. If you need information from us, or from this website, in a different format, such as an audio recording, large print or braille, please email us or call our helpline on 0800 023 4567.

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

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. 

This statement was prepared in September 2020. It was last reviewed in August 2024.

This website was last tested in May 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA Standard. The test was carried out by Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC). They conducted usability testing with a team of disabled users, and tested our website using technical auditing tools. All aspects of our website were tested by checking a sample of pages covering all of our available page templates and blocks.