Interim Digital Accessibility Statement

‘Accessibility’ means designing things that disabled people can perceive, use, and understand.

How we support digital accessibility

We support digital accessibility by:

• including accessibility in our policies
• training our staff
• checking our websites for issues, keeping track of issues, and fixing them
• responding positively to complaints
• working to meet the NZ Government Web Accessibility Standard external.

As part of this commitment, we developed a 5-year programme of work and have a dedicated team to carry out this work.

Alternate formats

Contact us if you need information in alternate formats, such as:

• Easy Read
• New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL)
• Braille
• audio
• large print

In your message, include:

• the web address (URL) of the information you need
• the format you need — for example, Braille.

Feedback

Contact us if you find digital accessibility issues on this website. We aim to respond to feedback within 3 business days.

Formal digital accessibility complaints

To make a formal complaint, follow the complaints information on the MSD website external.

If you make a complaint and you're not satisfied with the response, you can learn about your options from:

• the Human Rights Commission external
• the Ombudsman external.

Conformance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) external defines requirements for web accessibility.

We are progressively working to become fully conformant to WCAG 2.1 at Level AA.

We did accessibility checks against the New Zealand Government Web Standards external during the development of this website. We will complete an accessibility audit post-website launch and provide the results of that audit on this page.

Content that is not accessible

There are some accessibility issues that we have not been able to fix before the website launched.

Compatibility with browsers and assistive technologies

This website should work with common browsers.

We have not yet completed our testing against standard assistive technologies.

Assessment approach

This website’s accessibility has not been completed. Our assessment approach will consist of:

• evaluating selected pages against WCAG 2.1 Level AA
• testing selected pages with assistive technologies.

Approver of this statement

Digital Accessibility Team
Ministry of Social Development
Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora

Interim statement review date

16 October 2024