Accessible Technology Charter

We will ensure disabled and older people can apply for jobs with us, be employed by us and do business with us, by implementing an Information and Communications Technology strategy which includes the following commitments regarding accessibility: 

  1. We will appoint an executive level ICT Access Champion who will report to the board, raise awareness of the benefits of this agenda and ensure that we achieve continuous improvement in this area.
  2. We will ensure that employees understand how technology can liberate the contribution of everyone, including disabled people, as colleagues and as customers.
  3. We will routinely consult with disabled employees, customers and experts to ensure that we understand the impact of our technology on: talent management, employee productivity and our diverse customer base.
  4. We will allow reasonable personalisation of technology by our employees and customers in order to meet their own accessibility requirements. Technologies that individuals interact with include display, keyboard and mouse, phones and self service facilities.
  5. We will embed and promote a reasonable adjustment process that provides speedy and usable ICT solutions for disabled colleagues and customers.
  6. We will give our relevant ICT people the ‘disability know how’ needed to deliver effective business processes and reasonable adjustments for disabled colleagues and customers.
  7. We will establish our performance baseline using EFD’s E-Accessibility Maturity Model. We will work to practical, easy to communicate accessibility requirements based on existing formal standards and will consistently go beyond minimum compliance to bring greater benefits to our business.
  8. We will promote a development lifecycle for our ICT solutions that is based on inclusive design from definition to delivery, to minimise the cost and reputation risk triggered by retrofitting products and systems.
  9. We will require, help and encourage our ICT supply partners to develop and deliver accessible products and services. We will formally consider accessibility in all our procurement decisions. We will purchase solutions which are as accessible as possible.
  10. We will continuously improve our accessibility: we will document what works and share our learning with BTAT.