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Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for rcs.ac.uk

This accessibility statement applies to rcs.ac.uk and all our public-facing websites.

We want our website to be accessible to as many people as possible and we understand that some parts of our website aren’t currently fully accessible yet.

For example, that means 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 has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of our website aren’t fully accessible. For example:

  • You cannot change colours on the website and some menu items have poor colour contrast
  • There are areas across the site where focus isn’t visible when zoomed in
  • Older PDFs and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

 

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Email website@rcs.ac.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

You can find instructions on how to access the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on our How to Find Us page. If you can’t view our map or need help, please email us.

 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking for ways to improve our website and communication. If you find any accessibility issues or pages where things could be easier to navigate or read, please email website@rcs.ac.uk

 

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).

 

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact us using Contact Scotland BSL which is a free service.

If you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

You can find all our contact information on our contact page.

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland 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

Our website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • PDFs
    • There are PDFs hosted on our website since 2018 which aren’t fully accessible.
    • We are working our way through the PDFs but as we are a small team it is taking time to get through them all.
  • Focus Visible
    • There are areas across the site where focus isn’t clear due to poor colour contrast, for example on our homepage the link to ‘Newsroom’. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible.
    • There are also times where focus becomes obscured towards the bottom of pages when the site is zoomed in 400%, including when our main menu is expanded. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured.
  • Contrast
    • There are some instances on the site where elements in our menu have poor colour contrast once an item is selected. For example if you choose ‘Study Here’ the other options in the menu fade and don’t have sufficient colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast.
  • Keyboard Navigation
    • In some instances when the site is zoomed in 200%, users cannot use their keyboard to navigate between page section jump links. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard.
  • Reflow
    • At 400% zoom, users cannot use their keyboard to navigate between page sections as the content does not reflow correctly. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.10 Reflow.

Disproportionate burden

At the time of our most recent assessment (March 2026) we found it to be a disproportionate burden to fix all of the above issues due to budgetary constraints and the limited resource available to the web team staff.

The size of our team is very small with only 1 full-time member of staff managing all content across thousands of pages. Our website is developed by an external company who we would need to pay to fix all of these issues and we already have limited budget available to us. We have never received any complaints about the accessibility of our website, or any requests for information to be provided in a different format.

We have made the external company aware of these issues and will work with them to fix them in our next financial year, beginning August 2026.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 11 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 15 June 2026.

This website was last tested on 10 March 2026. The test was carried out using Axe, SiteImprove and a manual check. We tested a random selection of pages from our website.