This website is Accessible.

Below are a number of additional notes and recommendations of interest to visitors to the website who are using assistive technologies or mobile devices, or who may have restrictions on the use of Flash or Javascript due to company policy or device limitations.

Flash and Screen Readers and PDA's

If you are wanting to use a screen reader such as JAWS or Window-eyes to listen to the website then it is recommended that you use at least version 6 of Flash Reader, the latest version of which you can download quickly and easily from Macromedia.

Navigation and content is available even if you do not have Flash or Javascript activated.

However, you may find the website even easier to listen to (all those 'embedded flash' and 'flash button' phrases spoken by screen readers can get wearisome) by switching to the Low Graphics mode. This displays the same content and navigation but it has been created for users of screen readers and PDA's so that they get the content first, without Flash and Images.

Screen Reader Setting Recommendations

Users of screen readers should note that this site makes use of Title and Acronym, and so will gain more from the site if they configure their screen reader to pick up these attributes.
For users of JAWS we recommend the following sort order   'title|text|alt|href'  as the best combination to set.

Access Keys

Access Keys provide a quick way to navigate round the site without using a mouse, and on this site are based on the UK Government Access Keys system.

The keys are used in conjuction with Alt or Ctrl and Enter keys which vary depending on your browser.

1. Hold down

• 'Alt' key  if using Internet Explorer for Windows 
• 'Ctrl' key if using Mozilla/Firefox, or if using Internet Explorer or Safari on a Mac
• 'Shift' and 'Esc' together if using Opera (note Opera ignores numeric Access Keys)

2. and simultaneously select a key from the list below

External Sites

The Scottish Executive is not responsible for the content or accessibility of other sites linked to from this site.

Links and Images

Note that for all links to documents on this site, the type and file size is shown.

Typically a 100 kilobyte file will take about 15 seconds to download on a 56K modem.

Any links which open a new browser window will be indicated by text of by the 'new window' icon

All trivial images have null Alt text.

Problems Accessing Documents

If you have any problems accessing the information or documents published on this website, please contact the Scottish Executive.

Problems for Opera and Mozilla and Safari Users

Some site visitors using the Opera, Mozilla or Safari browsers might have problems with Flash images or navigation. If so, please switch to low graphics mode. We are aware of this issue and are investigating an Accessible solution.

Adobe Links

The Adobe site offers

free Adobe Acrobat reader  we recommend the latest version for the most up to date Accessibility features.
Accessibility Conversion tools may help you convert from one format to another.
PDF Accessibility information from Adobe.

Accessibility Rating

This site was evaluated on the 5th May using Bobby 5.00.6.3 and by subsequent manual checking and then tested by a visually impaired examiner. It has attained a 'AAA' WAI rating.

The site html code was also validated against XHTML 1.0 Transitional on the 4th May 2004, using the W3C and Web Design Group validators, and its styles are CSS2 compliant. Some tags have been effected by the Windows Internet Explorer API and these will be changed as soon as those issues are resolved. However, these do not impact adversely on assistive technologies nor the browsers.

Audio content and navigation for talking browsers and screen readers has been checked by listening to the site using JAWS.