Accessibility statement for ram.ac.uk

This accessibility statement applies to ram.ac.uk

This website is run by the Royal Academy of Music. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 200% 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 have also tried to make 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 this website are not fully accessible:

  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • older PDF documents and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • you cannot change colours on the website
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some videos do not have audio description, often because they contain only music
  • some audio streams do not have transcripts, often because they contain only music

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

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

Please also let us know if you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘travelling to the Academy’ page, please call or email us for directions.

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 Royal Academy of Music 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard.

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

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

PDF titles

  • Some PDFs generated since 2018 are not fully accessible as they are missing a correct title.
  • This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.2 (page titled).
  • We work to identify and fix PDFs regularly although we are a small team, which makes this a slow process.

Academy Guide colour contrast

Link text

  • Some of our link text doesn’t make sense to screen readers or when read on its own. For example, ‘click here’ or ‘discover more’.
  • This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)).
  • When instances are found, they are changed and the content editors are made aware. We have included guidance on this in our typography and web editing guidelines.

Carousel on Alumni pages

  • The image carousel that autoplays at the top of the Alumni pages cannot be paused, stopped or hidden.
  • This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.2.2 (pause, stop, hide).
  • We aim to fix this once we have completed an ongoing ticketing system integration on the website, which will free up the necessary time and resources of our web support provider.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents
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 currently plan to fix our Royal Charter of 1830.

Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Some pre-recorded audio and video
The accessibility regulations do not require us to adjust audio and video published before 23 September 2020 if this content is not essential to providing our services.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We want our website to offer the best experience possible for all of our users. In addition to our plan to fix known issues, we continue to work on website content and structure. We are working with our suppliers to fix issues and think about future developments. We are also now:

  • including accessibility training for newly onboarded staff who create web content
  • we are continually updating our web editing guides to ensure staff have reliable reference materials

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 April 2020. It was last reviewed on 11 October 2024.

This website was last tested against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard following a review from the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) in July 2024. The GDS found that the website was partially compliant with legal requirements. Since then, all issues discovered in the report have been fixed or resolved.

Additional tests were performed with Voice Over and keyboard, ANDI and deque tools, all within the Google Chrome browser. We take an agile approach to the ongoing development of our website, reviewing it on a termly basis to check new features and content.