See answers to previous information requests

1.What is the name of your Local Authority?
Wokingham Borough Council.

2. What type of Council are you? (e.g District Council, Unitary authority, etc)
Unitary Authority.

3. How many properties are registered for Council Tax in your area
74,674.

4. Within your Revenues and Benefits service, what of the following can residents submit/apply for via a digital form?
• Single Person Discount: Yes
• Direct debit: Yes
• Change of Address: Yes
• Payment arrangement: No
• Student disregard/exemption: Yes
• Severely Mentally Impaired disregard/exemption: Yes
• Disabled Band reduction: No
• Council Tax Support: Yes
• Online benefit calculators: No
• Person in hospital or care home: No
• Other disregard discounts (e.g. carers): No
• Discretionary Housing Payment: No
• Discretionary Council Tax discount (section 13a): No
• Other, please state: Housing Benefit, second adult rebate, change of circumstances.

5. Do you have plans to introduce and/or improve your digital online forms within the next 2-3 years? If answered yes, please state what type of online form.
Discretionary Council Tax discount (section 13a) Discretionary Housing Payment (currently accessible PDF only) and Local Welfare Provision.

6. Please provide the annual cost of providing digital forms?
The Council pays a monthly fee of £2,400 for a Content Management System. (CMS). This is the cost of hosting/support etc and includes creating online forms. (which are a small part of the website) This figure is for the whole Council and not only for the Revenues and Benefits service. There are also costs for maintaining the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for licensing, and again this is for the whole Council. (unknown figure for this) and is for the whole website, of which forms are just a very small part of. There would also be the cost of staffing in the web team, but these would not be specific to one service area and would be the costs for the whole Council. (unknown figures for this)

7. Of the following, please choose the top three reasons why your council offers the facility for residents to submit information/apply for reductions via an online form?
Efficiency: No
Cost savings: No
Accessibility: Yes
Accuracy (reduction of errors): No
Sustainability (environmental impact): No
Data management/reporting: No
Improved service: Yes
Automation: Yes

8. What measures do you have in place to ensure accessibility for individuals with disabilities when accessing these digital forms
As well as offering help and support over the phones and in person, WBC follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Some of the measures in place include the ability to change the colours, contrast & fonts on the website; zoom in up to 300% without text spilling off the screen; most of the website can be navigated using just a keyboard; navigate most of the website using speech recognition software and users can listen to most of the website using a screen reader. (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver). These measures work with the online forms.

Wokingham Borough Council have dedicated Digital champions within each service area, who assist the web teams, by providing feedback on service area web pages that may be inaccessible and seek to find ways to improve accessibility for users. We also do research with disabled users to gain valuable feedback and improve accessibility. WBC regularly monitors the accessibility of the website using automated Quality Assurance software. This is used to identify and fix any issues that arise.

Wokingham Borough Council is committed to making its website accessible, in line with the Public Sector Bodies (websites and mobile applications)(no2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (websites and mobile applications)(no 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We do not have control over and are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content, however we endeavour to work with the third party to improve its accessibility.

Wokingham Borough Council is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and are constantly working on improving its website to ensure accessibility for individuals. Full details can be found on the WBC website under the Accessibility Statement page: https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/accessibility-statement-wokingham-borough-council

9. What measures do you have in place to ensure accessibility for individuals where English is not their first language when accessing these digital forms
Our website gives help on how to translate webpages from one language to another, using Google translate.

10. What measure(s) do you have to support residents who lack digital skills or who do not have access to digital communication
We still maintain a telephone service and face to face counter where we can support residents. Along with our libraries within our area and the main reception office at Shute End building we have computers residents can access. There are digital help drop-in sessions provided at the libraries.