The Learning and Skills Improvement Service is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience - regardless of ability or browsing technology and including those who have visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments. The Internet has helped to change the way people work and communicate. We want to give control to users and let you decide how you view the site. Our website offers accessibility options that are easy to discover, understand and select. The site aims to achieve overall compliance with the Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) guidelines.

For more information on the guidelines, please visit the WAI's website.

Increasing the text size

If you find the text on this site is too small, you can change it easily, either on our site or in your browser settings.

On the Excellence Gateway, you will find a plus and a minus icon in our list of links at the top of the page. Clicking on the icons will increase and decrease text size, respectively.

If you prefer, you may also change the text size from your browser. To adjust your browser's settings:

  • In Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the View menu, select Text Size and then either Larger or Largest.
  • In Mozilla Firefox, go to the View menu and choose Zoom and then Zoom In until you reach the size you require.
  • In Safari, go to the View menu and choose Make Text Bigger until you reach the size you require.

Changing the colours

If you use magnification technology you may want to change the site colours, as white can give an uncomfortable glare. To do this, simply change the preferences in your browser:

  • In Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the Tools menu, select Internet Options, select Colours at the bottom of the General tab and make changes to text and background colours in the Colours panel.
  • In Mozilla Firefox, go to Tools, select Options, select Colours in the middle of the Content tab and make changes to text and background colours in the Colours panel.

Our use of images

All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Those in purely decorative graphics or used for layout include blank ALT attributes.

Visual design

This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS) for visual layout. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page will still be readable.

Useful links

The following websites have useful advice and information about web accessibility: