- Scope
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Accessibility legislation (on legislation.gov.uk website) states that public sector websites must publish content in an accessible format, unless doing so would impose a disproportionate burden on the organisation. If that is the case, an assessment of the extent to which compliance with the accessibility requirement imposes a disproportionate burden must be carried out.
This is a Disproportionate Burden Assessment for the following Housing Servies Annual Reports which are available as online flipbooks:
- Benefits of making accessible
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The benefits of creating an HTML version of this PDF would be:
- a fully accessible version for all users to access
- an easily searchable and indexable version
- assistive technologies can interpret these elements more effectively providing more meaningful navigation options for people with disabilities
- compatibility with most screen readers and relates best to the 4 types of accessibility needs: visual, hearing, motor functions and cognitive impairments.
- Burden of making accessible
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This document is externally hosted by our supporting editor and for them to achieve full accessibility on the set of graphics, tables, colours and information, is an additional month of page-by-page work, costed and invoiced to Resident Involvement Team.
A reasonable estimate for full accessibility compliance is around 20 to 40 hours of work or approximately £5,000 if outsourced.
The domain hosting is critical to the flipbook style, enabling readers to turn to a page, flipping to and from pages of interest.
Currently we have 5% of residents who have some kind of disability. Although under-reported, it is unlikely they will be dis-advantaged.
We offer support in a range of mitigations – hard copies; an easy read version can be requested.
The Resident Involvement Team can provide language translations, and we have community support networks in place.
This is a short-term need. The Resident Involvement Team is reviewing options and styles for providing an Annual Report in a more user-focussed way for 2026 and onwards, including a graphic free option and an easy - read summary.
- Other factors
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Also relevant to this decision are that:
- We are legally required to make the documents available to the public, so the documents must be published on the Council’s website. The cost of sending this to all is prohibitive and disproportionate.
- Interest in the document is low - only 1,834 residents accessed/opened the online version 2024 and there is no data on who clicked through the pages and read end to end.
- Requests for additionally accessible versions are rare - no residents requested an accessible version 2024.
- The document is from a third-party source or organisation, and domain hosted externally.
- We have and will always assist with accessible versions on request
- Assessment
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Our assessment is the Annual Report flipbooks fit the criteria of being a disproportionate burden to make fully accessible.
The number of pages, graphics and charts to be amended outweigh the number of people who could potentially be prevented access and understanding.
There are many other means of requesting alternatives. The communications surrounding this going live will make a clear offer to support everyone.
A reasonable estimate for full accessibility compliance is around 20 to 40 hours of work or approximately £5,000 per document if outsourced.
This would place an undue burden on the Council, given the relatively small number views received per year.
Alternative formats can be supplied if required - requests should be sent to residentinvolvement@oxford.gov.uk.
- Date of assessment
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4 November 2025
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