Accessibility Statement

This website is operated by Vernius Limited, a company registered in England & Wales under company number 17114305. We want it to be usable by as many people as possible, including disabled people and people who use assistive technology.

In practice that means we want you to be able to:

• navigate and use the site with a keyboard, without a mouse;
• read the pages with a screen reader;
• zoom in, or increase the text size, without losing content;
• read text against backgrounds chosen for legible contrast.

We treat accessibility as part of building the site well rather than something added at the end. This is an ongoing effort. We do not claim the site is perfect or fully accessible, and we keep working at it.

We design and build toward the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2, level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). You can read the guidelines at w3.org/TR/WCAG22.

In plain terms, WCAG asks that content be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust: that people can perceive it whatever their senses, operate it however they interact with a device, understand it, and rely on it working across browsers and assistive technology. Level AA is the recognised benchmark used in the UK for making digital services accessible, and it is the target we build toward.

This website is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 level AA. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content may not fully meet the standard.

The site has not been independently audited or certified for accessibility. Our conformance claim is based on our own design and build practices, not on an external assessment. Some areas may fall short of level AA, and we do not claim that every page and every component meets the standard. We would rather tell you this plainly than overstate where we are.

The measures built into the site include:

• Semantic structure. We use meaningful HTML for headings, landmarks, lists and link text so that assistive technology can interpret each page.
• Keyboard operability. Interactive elements are reachable and usable with a keyboard alone.
• Visible focus. Keyboard focus is shown, so you can see where you are on the page.
• Contrast and colour. Text is set against backgrounds chosen for legibility, and we do not rely on colour alone to carry meaning.
• Responsive layout. The layout reflows and stays usable when you zoom in, increase the text size, or view the site on a small screen.
• Reduced motion. We respect the prefers-reduced-motion setting, so if your device asks for less motion, non-essential animation is reduced or removed.

The site includes an on-site assistant: a text chat input where you can describe your problem and read a reply. It is a standard text interface, reachable by keyboard. We have not specially accessibility tested it, and we describe its limits in the next section.

We cannot guarantee that every page and every component meets level AA at all times.

Some parts of the site rely on third-party or dynamically generated content that we do not fully control. In particular, the on-site assistant sends your message to a third-party AI provider (via our hosting provider’s AI gateway) and returns a generated reply. We do not author each reply, so we cannot warrant that its wording and structure always meet accessibility guidance. Other embedded or externally hosted components may also fall short of level AA.

New content and changes to the site can introduce accessibility problems. When we find or are told about an issue, we fix it, and we prioritise fixes that affect the most people or that block a core task.

This statement covers the vernius.co.uk website only. The accessibility of software we build for a client is addressed in that engagement’s Terms of Business and its Order, not by this statement.

If you find an accessibility barrier on this site, or you need information from it in a different format, email us at contact@vernius.co.uk.

It helps if you describe the problem and, where you can, tell us the page you were on and what you were trying to do, so we can reproduce and fix it. If you would like content from the site in an alternative or accessible format, for example a different file format or a plain-text version, ask us and we will try to provide it.

We will respond within a reasonable period and make reasonable adjustments where we can to help you access the information or service.

As a private business that provides services, we have duties under the Equality Act 2010, including the duty to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Equality Act 2010.

Our duties arise under the Equality Act 2010. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to public sector bodies and do not apply to Vernius. This statement is a good-faith account of what we do; nothing in it limits or contracts out of our obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

If you are unhappy with how we respond, the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) provides free advice to individuals on Equality Act matters and may be able to help.

This statement is based on our own review of the site against WCAG 2.2 level AA. It is a self-assessment, not an independent audit.

We review this statement periodically and update it when the site changes or when we find or fix an issue. For how we handle personal data, see our Privacy Policy; for the terms governing use of the site, see our Terms of Use.