Wirral Council has apologised after it was accused of breaking the law by a disability group over its recent budget survey.
Campaign group Together All Are Able said the council has not provided a version of its consultation that is easier to read for people with disabilities.
The council recently revealed it has to close a £32m gap in its finances driven by rising inflation and energy costs, proposing massive cuts that could see ten libraries closed and services cut back.
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As part of this process, the council has been getting people to fill out questions to get an idea of what services people value the most.
Wirral Council said it was unable to provide an accessible version because of time constraints and said anyone with issues accessing the consultation should contact the council.
Together All Are Able said that by not providing an accessible version of the consultation it “excludes people with disabilities or low levels of literacy.”
A spokesperson for the group said: "Wirral Council has an obligation to communicate in a way which meets the accessible information standard. The failure to provide information in an easy read version fails to meet this standard. This includes the Equality Act requires them to make reasonable adjustment to their working practices, such as producing information in easy read.
"Wirral Council's failure to make this reasonable adjustment, is in our opinion, a breach of the Equality Act. As such, it is an act of discrimination against people with disabilities
"This is not the first time Wirral Council have done this. We suggest that all consultation process should be co-produced with people with disabilities like us at Together All Are Able. This would make sure this situation will not happen again and will save money in the long term as Wirral Council would get it right the first time.
"One of our directors tried filling the consultation form in, but was unable to do so due to there not being an easy read version."
A Wirral Council spokesperson said: "We are very sorry Together All Are Able are unhappy we were unable to provide easy read versions of the budget questionnaires.
"In this case unfortunately the time available to carry out the consultations meant this was not possible and we instead had to give people the option to contact us if they were struggling to complete the questionnaires."
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