2.2. Good Practice for Providing information in an Alternative Format

Despite these technological developments, it should be noted that:

• Many disabled people still do not have ready access to technology 25% of disabled adults,compared to 10.2% of the general population had never used the Internet in 2016. ( Office of National Statistics 2016)
• Some alternative formats, for example easy read and British Sign Language (BSL) cannot be created independently.
• Electronic information needs to be structured in a certain way to make it accessible to specialised software. This topic is covered in our second module Hidden Accessibility.

It is therefore necessary for service organisations to be prepared to provide information in an alternative format if requested by:

• Putting a statement on all their publications that the information is available in alternative formats,
• having a system in place to respond, in good time, to requests for information in an alternative format.

If you are asked for a document in an alternative format:

• check within your organisation that this format does not already exist,
• check that the same information is not already available from another source [Example: on the Internet, from another organisation]
• If the request is for a hard copy item such as braille check with the requester if they have ready access to a computer. If an electronic format is acceptable they should get the information quicker.