Equality Aim 3
Doing more to communicate with our residents in an accessible way
We will :
- use different ways to communicate with our residents, such as 'Easy Read'
- support those who are digitally excluded
- go out to where our residents are
During our consultation and engagement process, residents spoke passionately about difficulties and barriers in communicating with council services. This became a strong theme, resulting in a specific aim targeted at communication.
Residents have asked for a better, more accessible council website. They also want support for:
- vulnerable residents, particularly those with learning disabilities
- those who do not speak English
as well as better and simpler communications from the council as a whole.
By varying our communication methods, we will ensure that residents facing language and other barriers can access our services.
"The RBKC website’s colours and fonts are not engaging, there is a lot of writing, and it is confusing. It needs more images and pictures. More concise information would be helpful."
"The council are not speaking the language of the people. We need to not just put things in plain English, we must look at how that message is got across to people who live here in a way that means something to them."
Achievements to date
We are changing how we communicate with our residents and breaking down barriers to access, including:
- a new contract to provide translation and interpretation services across all council services. This will ensure residents do not face language barriers when communicating with the council about their needs
- helping residents to overcome barriers to using online services, including:
- building confidence and motivation
- access to devices and connectivity
- support with skills development
-
working with leads across services in the council to promote digital inclusion by providing:
- over 300 hundred public access devices for residents
- hundreds of recycled tablets, mobile phones and sim cards for those most in need
- producing content and resources for children in schools supporting those with special education needs and disabilities by using symbols
- aligning with the way that schools produce resources when communicating with their students
Our targeted actions
We want ensure all residents receive information in a way that meets their needs by improving our communications.
Action 12
Make information on our website more accessible by:
- ensuring our websites can be translated into different languages
- meet the government’s accessibility standards
Progress measures
Use the Digital Customer Interaction score to regularly measure how satisfied users are with our website and how easy they find it to use the site. This will help us identify and address any issues and make improvements.
Use feedback and work with partners to gather experiences from residents to monitor the accessibility of our websites.
Action 13
Make information more accessible through the development of guidance and enabling staff to create 'Easy Read' documents and forms.
Progress measures
Produce all key documents in the accepted 'Easy Read' standard, created through co-production with those with learning disabilities, across all council services to make information more accessible.
Monitor the number of requests for documents in other formats, for example, 'Easy Reads', and the timely response to provide this.