Accessibility Statement for the Legal Ombudsman service 


Using this website

This page contains our website Accessibility Statement. The website is run by the Legal Ombudsman and outlines the accessibility services that we provide. 

It been designed to be user friendly and to be compatible with a range of assisted 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:

  • zoom in up to 300% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • use most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

Here are some of our helpful resources that you can access:


How accessible this website is

We have made the website text as simple as possible to understand. We know that parts of this website are not fully accessible. 

For example, some:

  • pages and document attachments may not be written in plain English
  • tables may not have row headings
  • documents may have poor colour contrast
  • heading elements may not be consistent
  • images may not have image descriptions
  • buttons may not be correctly identified
  • error messages may not be clearly associated with form controls
  • documents are in PDF format and are not accessible.


Each department which publishes content on www.legalombudsman.org.uk is responsible for making sure it meets the accessibility regulations. We will update the statement when issues are fixed or when we expect them to be fixed.

Please note that this statement applies to content published on the www.legalombudsman.org.uk domain (and does not apply to content linking to external websites).

Feedback and a request for information on this website in another format

If you need additional help or support with documents in a different format such as a PDF, large print, Braille or on audio CD or audio file, please tell us about it and we will do our best to meet your needs. 

We also understand that your circumstances might change, along with the support that you need, so please let us know at any time and we will consider your request. We can’t promise to do everything, but we will do our best to meet your needs where possible. 

Additional support:

  • Email us at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk 
    Call us on 0300 555 0333
    From outside the UK on +44 121 245 3050
    You can use Relay UK by calling 0800 7311 888
    More information about Relay UK can be found here.

We will do our best to meet your needs.


Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems not listed on this pages or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact us.

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).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

The Legal Ombudsman 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

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the exemptions that are listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with accessibility regulations

  1. Some tables in content do not have table row headers when needed. This means assistive technologies will not read the tables correctly. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).

  2. Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).

  3. Some pages have poor colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1 (Use of Colour).

  4. Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF.

PDFs and non-HTML documents

Many documents are not accessible in a number of ways including missing text alternatives and missing document structure.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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. For example, we do not plan to fix (example of non-essential document).

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We have an ongoing commitment to make our website as accessible as possible to all. 

We have carried out extensive in-house training with independent accessibility experts to ensure people directly and indirectly involved with managing our website/s have a better understanding of steps they can take to make content more accessible.

We have also worked with third-party suppliers whom we rely on for some of our key online customer journeys to try and ensure our website is more accessible, both now and in-future.

We are currently preparing a roadmap for accessibility based for accessibility based on the findings of our most recent audit, which will allow for users to understand our commitment to accessibility, and when we plan to resolve issues.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 27 August 2021. It was last reviewed on 27 August 2021. This website was last tested on 27 August 2021. Any testing will be carried out internally be the Legal Ombudsman. You can read the full accessibility test report here.