Welcome to Renfrewshire community website 
Using this site
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Welcome to Renfrewshire community website!
Renfrewshire Council manages this community website. We call it a 'community website' rather than a council website because it has been designed to let you access all local public services in Renfrewshire from one place. We are developing this joined-up approach to give Renfrewshire community partners, groups and organisations the opportunity to add their own information. These links should help you to get to know the website:
- Viewing options
- Navigation
- Alternative formats
- Downloads
- Links to partner websites
- Links to this site
- Maps
- Searching
- Plain English
- Child safety on the internet
- Help and feedback
Viewing Options
The site is best viewed with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 and with the browser text size set at medium. To change the text size, you can use:
- Microsoft Windows accessibility options
- other specialist aids and adaptations already on your computer
- Internet Explorer text options
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Navigation - Home page - horizontal navigation bar
The website uses the government’s recommended LAWS content categorisation method. Pages are categorised under two listings. Along the top navigation bar you see the options Home, Services, News and Events, About Renfrewshire, and Vacancies. Their functions are:
- Home - returns you to the site Home (main) page
- Services - provides a long page of links to each sub heading of the Services site area.
- News and Events - lists new press releases and details of various local events about Renfrewshire Council, other public services and community organisations and groups.
- About Renfrewshire - information about the performance and standards of the Council and other public services in Renfrewshire. It also contains statistics, heritage and tourism information about Renfrewshire towns and villages.
- Vacancies - information on job opportunities with the council and other public sector organisations in Renfrewshire.
On the left hand side of the home page the options displayed are:
- Business - information on business advice, support, finance, property, licensing and trading standards
- Community and Living - community councils, funding, consumer advice, life events and community groups
- Council and Government - information about the Council, councillors, elections, voting, council tax and other matters
- Education and Learning - schools, further education, teaching, community working and education support services
- Environment and Planning - information about the environment and its protection, food protection, waste and recycling, planning and street care
- Housing - council housing and housing associations, private housing, adaptations and sheltered housing
- Jobs and Careers - career and work opportunities
- Leisure and Culture - sports facilities, arts, heritage, museums, galleries, parks and recreation
- Libraries - all aspects of the Renfrewshire library service including online booking and information services
- Policing and Public Safety - accidents, emergencies, safety, crime and law enforcement
- Social Care and Health - health and medical care, social work, disability and benefits and debt advice
- Transport and Streets - road and lighting faults, road works, parking and transport, road safety, flooding and gritting
Navigation - Summary
To summarise:
- Left hand side (green) menu - top-level pages
- Opened left hand side (green) menu - second level pages
- Right hand side (green) menu - third level pages
- Right hand side (blue) menu - fourth level pages
- you can use the top level navigation. Click on the links to Home, Services, News and Events, About Renfrewshire, and Vacancies.
- you can use the ‘bread-crumb trail’ (the words containing arrow symbols under the page title, for example, Home>Services>Business to move around the site. Try a little experimentation until you get the hang of it.
- you can return to the left hand side green menu
- you can use the ‘back’ button on your browser
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Alternative formats
Documents are not available in alternative languages and formats on the site. However, Renfrewshire Council will make documents available in alternative formats wherever practically possible. If you would like a document on this site in an alternative format such as large print or Braille, you can email newmedia@renfrewshire.gov.uk. If English isn’t your first language, you could try the Babelfish website. Here you can translate the pages on this site into other languages. Translations will not generally be perfect, but they should make most of the content understandable.
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Downloads
Many pages on this website contain links to documents such as forms and reports that you can download and print or keep as files on your computer. Most of these files are in portable document format .pdf format. Where these documents are larger than 400 Kb, a warning is provided to let you know that the file may take several minutes to download with slower Internet access. As a matter of course we have added file sizes to all downloadable documents on the site. A link to the Adobe website is also provided so that you can download the free Adobe pdf reader software if you need it.
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Links to partner websites
Building links between this website, our partners’ sites and independent community websites is a key objective of the council. The navigation, ease of use, editorial policies and objectives will vary between sites. To let you know when you are leaving this website, our links to external sites all have html tags on them which appear when your mouse hovers over the link. Typically, these tags are in the format of ‘XYZ website opening in a new browser window’. The new browser window opening allows you to close the external link site window and return easily to this website.
At the foot of each page you will see a set of Terms and Conditions that contains, among other things, a statement of the copyright, disclaimer and data protection policies which apply to the community website. A key policy to note is that Renfrewshire Council provides links to the websites of other organisations purely for your convenience. The links do not imply that Renfrewshire Council endorses or supports those organisations, the information on their pages, or their products or services in any way. While the council assumes no responsibility for the contents of its pages, if you think that a link is inappropriate, please feel free to contact us using the email link at the foot of this page.
Every effort is made to monitor links to partner sites and keep them up to date, but we can't guarantee that all links will work all of the time. If you discover a broken link, please report it to us using the email option at the foot of this page.
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Links to this site
You are welcome to make links to any page on our site providing the wording of the link does not misrepresent our site - check with us if you're unsure. Please don't copy text or graphics from our pages on to your own, or include any graphics on our site within your pages without contacting us first. Email us at newmedia@renfrewshire.gov.uk or phone 0141 840 3620/3656 for more information.
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Maps
These are used extensively on the website for content, for example, locations of schools, election boundaries and are linked to the council’s online mapping system. We have extended this system to allow users to find a range of community information including a 'Where is my nearest?' facility, a 'What's in the area?' facility and a 'report a fault' facility. We also use several pictorial maps where appropriate, for example, car parks.
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Searching
The search facility is on the top right hand side of each page. Enter a word or phrase in the search field and click on the ‘Go’ button. You will be given a listing of pages that match your entry. Each option on the list has a short extract from the page’s text to help you decide whether this is the information you are looking for. Click on the page name to visit the page. There is also a facility availabe to refine your search and to search the other databases we have on the website, for example, vacancies, agendas and minutes.
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Plain English
Renfrewshire Council was awarded Plain English Crystal Mark status for the community website in May 2006. This is a standard set by the Plain English campaign to confirm that it is written in language that is concise, easy to understand and free from jargon. You can find out more about the Crystal Mark standard at the Plain English Campaign website.
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Child safety on the internet
There is a wealth of information available on our community website that will be of interest to children and teens. However we want to make sure that if children are using the internet they're using it safely. Our libraries section has put together some information to help children 'stay safe online'. Use these links to find out more:
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Help and feedback
Renfrewshire Council is committed to delivering excellent services and welcomes feedback from service users. If you think improvements can be made to this community website we want to hear from you. Let us know any problems you have with the site design or navigation. If you write to us we will reply within 10 working days. If we can make the changes to the site that you suggest we'll tell you, and if we can’t we'll explain our reasons.
We look forward to hearing from you:
- email: newmedia@renfrewshire.gov.uk
- phone: 0141 840 3620/3656
Communications and New Media team
Chief Executive's
Renfrewshire Council
Renfrewshire House
Cotton Street
Paisley
PA1 1WB
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