A survey to test how well Bradford Council makes information available to disabled people has revealed that too much jargon is used and that information is not always in the correct format.

Organisations such as the Access to Information Group, which is made up of disabled people and those with a sensory loss, and Bradnet, a deaf empowerment project, took part in the mystery shopping exercise.

It follows a petition to the Council last year calling for five principles for producing better information for disabled people to be adopted. At the time the petitioners said some departments did provide information in accessible formats, but the main issue was consistency.

As a result, the Council agreed to adopt the principles and a progress report was submitted earlier this year. It was agreed that a mystery shopping exercise would be done as a way of ascertaining whether accessible information is produced by different services.

Those involved used the internet and visited Council buildings to request information such as dates for neighbourhood forums, an electoral roll form, information on the City Park project, and minutes of Council meetings.

The findings included:

* disabled people generally encountered problems trying to get information from the Council as it was not always readily available in the formats required

* the Council uses too much jargon and too many difficult words

* there is a general will among staff to provide the information but resources and skills are not always made available

* there is no consistent approach across services to providing accessible information

* the Council needs to make all information available in multiple formats on request.

In a report to the corporate improvement committee on Wednesday, chief executive Tony Reeves says: “At the moment requests for information in alternative formats are relatively few, but this is likely due to lack of knowledge about what is available or that people have a right to request information in a way they can access it.”

The meeting takes place at City Hall, Bradford, from 6pm.