The Royal College of Music is committed to ensuring as many people as possible can use this website.
We are currently completing an accessibility audit. We are aware of some accessibility issues and are working to address these comprehensively.
This accessibility statement applies to https://www.rcm.ac.uk. Please note, this website is run by the Royal College of Music.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not accessible
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
- some form fields do not receive visible focus when tabbed to
Feedback and contact information
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.
If you find any problems not listed on this page or if you need information on this website in a different format such as large print please contact us using the details below:
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).
Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
You can get in touch with us by phone, email, or in-person. We have an audio induction loop at the RCM Museum.
Read more about accessibility at RCM
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Royal College 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
This website is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The non-compliances and exemptions are listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Non-text content
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
We plan to add text alternatives for all images by June 2023. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Reflow and magnification
Some website functionality does not work when using browser magnification at 400%. This doesn’t meet WCAG success criterion 1.4.10 (reflow).
We plan to resolve this by July 2023.
Keyboard Accessibility
Most of the website can be used using a keyboard, including recent fixes to the primary navigation. We are working to resolve some outstanding issues to ensure that the full website can be navigated using a keyboard, including event filters.
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
Colour contrast
Some parts of the website have insufficient colour contrast. Insufficient colour contrast may make it difficult to identify some controls and read some content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.11 (non-text contrast), 1.4.3 contrast (minimum) and 1.4.6 contrast (enhanced).
We plan to resolve this by March 2023.
Parsing
Some of the HTML markup on our website does not parse correctly. This could cause issues when using our website with assistive technologies. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (parsing).
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
Resize text
Some content becomes obscured and features do not work correctly when font size is increased by 200%. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.4 (resize text).
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
Focus visible
Some elements do not show visible focus. This may present difficulty for some keyboard-only and / or neurodivergent users. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 2.4.7 (focus visible).
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
Link purpose
Not all links have discernible text. This means it is not always possible to identify the purpose of a link, even within the context of surrounding content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 2.4.4 (link purpose).
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
ARIA conflicts
There are some issues with the usage of ARIA on our website that may cause issues when using our website with assistive technologies. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
We plan to resolve this by August 2023.
Disproportionate burden
Ticketing
Our ticketing platform is not WCAG 2.1 compliant. Some users may have difficulty selecting dates and choosing seats when booking tickets using assistive technologies.
We use Spektrix as our ticketing and CRM system. Read the accessibility statement on Spektrix iFrames for further information.
We’ve spoken to Spektrix about their plans to improve the accessibility of their platform. We’ve also assessed the cost and feasibility of switching ticketing systems or implementing a custom ticketing website.
We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We expect this to be the case until Spring 2024, after which accessibility improvements will have been made.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. By Summer 2023, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible word documents or 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.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We’re currently auditing the accessibility of our website.
This will show how and when we plan to resolve the existing issues and improve accessibility on this website.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 10 January 2023 and will be reviewed on a regular basis. It was last reviewed on 16 February 2023.
The last assessment of this website was conducted in November 2022. We are currently conducting further auditing which will be completed in February 2023.
We used a combination of automated and manual assessment to review the accessibility of our website. We scan all pages using Sortsite from Powermapper and manually assess a representative sample of pages from our website ensuring all page types and user interface elements have been assessed.
