Accessibility help

Using This Site

You can change your browser's font style, size and colour to suit your needs. Learn more about changing your browser settings.

Where to Start

The site map gives a complete overview of all the pages in the site. The five main sections of the site (About NSS, NSS Divisions, NSS Publications, NSS Careers, NSS Contacts) all contain sub-sections. These can be accessed by clicking on the left-hand menu items to reveal the sub-section links.

You can also access certain pages using Access Keys. Click here for help using access keys. The keys implemented on this site are as follows:

S - Skip to page content
L - Listen to page
1 - Home page
3 - Site map
4 - Search
6 - Contact us for help
7 - Complaints procedure
8 - Terms
9 - Feedback form
0 - Access key help

Listen To This Site

This website is speech enabled. Click on the Listen to this page option to listen to the whole page.

By using the speech enabled function users with reading difficulties can access content on this website. The following groups may find the feature beneficial:

Low literacy and reading skills
English as a second language
Dyslexia
Mild visual impairments

Dixerit can read most file formats including PDF and Microsoft Word. It works on all major browsers with connection speeds of 33.6k and requires no plugin or download from the visitor.

Content can be downloaded as a podcast in MP3 format to be listened to at a later date on your PC or portable media player.

Search Tips

Use the Search Box at the top of each page to search the site. Use keywords rather than natural language. To search for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation marks (e.g. "practitioner services").

Some pages show lists of documents in tables. These are the Our Publications, Board Papers, Freedom of Information (FOI) Disclosure Log, Impact Assessment Log and News Archive pages. These tables have their own search facilities, positioned just above each table. You can use these to search the documents by keywords, month, year or (in certain cases) division.

Images

All images have ALT or TITLE attributes associated with them. This means a short description will be provided when images are disabled or are for other reasons unavailable, alternatively a tool-tip will be displayed when hovered over with the mouse pointer.

Links

We have tried to describe our links logically (rather than just 'click here') so that they make sense out of context. Where appropriate, our links are given TITLE attributes to fully explain the purpose of the link.

For users with screen readers, we have provided links which enable certain parts of each page to be skipped. For example, you can jump straight to the main navigation links, or straight to the main content of the page. These 'skip links' will not be visible to those using a standard browser, except under certain circumstances (such as disabling stylesheets).

Portable Document Format (PDF) Files

Some of our content is provided in the form of PDF (portable document format) files. In order to view these documents through your browser you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader software; this free software can be installed automatically for you if it is not available on your system by going to the Adobe web site.

Conformance Statement

WAI Conformance

This site conforms to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The WAI Guidelines are divided into three levels of compliance: Single-A, Double-A, Triple-A. This site meets all the requirements for Double-A compliance.

Help us to help you

While we have made every effort to keep our website accessible, problems may still arise. We are committed to addressing any accessibility issues promptly. If you encounter any difficulties using this site please let us know. Contact us and describe your experience.

Forms

The forms on this website include a field in which you enter an 6-letter code. You get this code by reading the letters in an image next to the form field. We use this technique in order to prevent automated programs from using our forms.

If no image appears, please make sure your browser is set to display images and try again. If you are not sure what the code is, make your best guess. If you guess incorrectly, you can try a different code on the next screen.

If you cannot read the image code, or if you have any other difficulty with filling in a form, we can deal with your query in person. Please telephone us on 0131 275 6665.