LEGAL
Accessibility statement
This statement covers the Gill website. It sets out how accessible the site is, what we know is not yet accessible, and how to tell us when something does not work.
We want the site to be usable by as many people as possible. That means you should be able to navigate with a keyboard alone, resize text, use the site at high zoom, and read it with a screen reader.
Last reviewed 7 October 2026.
Where we stand
Partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 are the standard we are working to, at level AA. This site is partially conformant: some parts of it do not yet meet the standard, and those parts are listed below.
We are not claiming full conformance, because the checks that matter most to a screen reader user have not been completed yet. Saying otherwise would be easy and wrong.
Gill’s wider commitment to fair treatment, and the equality legislation behind it, sits in a separate policy. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
What has been tested
What we have checked, and how
Testing so far has been automated and measured rather than judged by eye. Every figure below comes from a script that can be run again.
Automated rule checks
axe-core against the WCAG 2.1 A and AA rule set, on 17 representative pages covering the homepage, every top-level section, a sector hub, an application page, the document library and a document page. 0 failing elements, down from 139 when this work started. The clean result was validated by injecting four known faults into a passing page and confirming all four were caught.
Colour contrast
Every element that paints its own text was measured against the background actually behind it, at 1280px and 390px. Around 5,300 samples across 17 pages, against 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. No failures.
Keyboard operation
1,352 real Tab presses across 14 pages. Every interactive element can be reached, focus is visible on every stop, focus order follows the reading order, and nothing traps the keyboard. The sensing maps are tabbed in the order their points are numbered.
Heading structure
Heading levels were checked on all 645 pages of the site on 7 October 2026. 67 pages skipped a level and all of them were corrected the same day. There are now no skipped heading levels anywhere. Every page has one main heading, apart from a password-protected internal page and an old holding page that is being retired.
Text resizing and reflow
Text enlarged to 200 per cent with nothing clipped or overlapping. The site reflows to 320 CSS pixels wide, equivalent to 400 per cent zoom, without sideways scrolling. The text spacing overrides required by WCAG 1.4.12 were applied and no content was lost.
Page structure
Every page has a skip link, a main landmark, a unique page title and a declared language.
Moving content
Five pages open with a silent background film. Each has a pause button that a keyboard or screen reader can reach. The film does not play at all for visitors whose device asks for reduced motion.
Images
Every one of the 2,628 images in page content carries alternative text or is marked as decorative. 1,266 have a written description. 1,362 sit beside a visible title or link label that says the same thing, so they are marked decorative and a screen reader does not read it twice.
Form labels
The site has 13 enquiry forms with 860 visible fields between them. Every field has a label that a screen reader announces. The only unlabelled field is an anti-spam trap that is hidden from assistive technology and cannot be reached with the keyboard.
Be aware
What has not been tested yet
Automated tools find roughly a third of accessibility problems. They cannot judge whether alternative text describes an image usefully, whether a page makes sense read aloud in order, or whether a heading tells you what a section contains.
None of the following has been done, and none of it can be inferred from the results above.
- Testing with a screen reader by hand, using NVDA, JAWS or VoiceOver.
- Testing with people who use assistive technology day to day.
- Whether alternative text describes each image usefully. Every image has alternative text or is marked decorative, but the wording has not been reviewed by a person.
- Forms, beyond their labels. Error messages, input purpose and status messages on the enquiry forms have not been tested.
- Video and audio with speech, because there is none yet. The site uses short silent background video only, so captions and audio description are not covered by this statement.
- Non-text contrast beyond focus indicators, such as icons, borders and chart lines.
Known problems
What is not accessible
These are the parts of the site we know do not meet WCAG 2.1 level AA.
Documents in the resource library
The library holds 230 documents, mostly PDFs, many of them produced years ago for products still in service. They have not been checked or remediated for accessibility. Some will not have a tag structure, reading order or alternative text. If you need the content of any Gill document in a different format, ask us and we will provide it.
Third-party content
Some pages link to content on other Gill sites and to our calibration company, Labcal. We do not control the accessibility of pages we do not publish.
Tell us
If something does not work for you
If you cannot use part of this site, or you need information from it in a different format, please tell us. Say what you were trying to do and what happened, and include the page address if you have it.
We will reply and tell you what we can do. If we cannot fix something quickly we will say so, and we will get you the information another way.
Tell us what went wrong and it reaches the person who looks after this site, rather than a general inbox.
About this statement
How this statement was prepared
This statement was prepared on 2 September 2026 and updated on 7 October 2026. It is based on testing carried out on those days against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level AA.
Testing was carried out in-house, using automated tools on a sample of 17 pages chosen to cover every page template on the site, plus structural checks across all 645 pages on 7 October 2026.
This statement will be reviewed and updated when the outstanding testing above has been completed, and whenever a change to the site affects it.
Have an application to discuss?
Speak to our team
Tell us what you need to measure, where and under what conditions. We’ll help you work out the appropriate approach.