About the cookies we use, why we use them, and their impact upon you.
A cookie is a small file, typically of letters and numbers, which may be placed on your computer when you access a website. Cookies generally allow the website to recognise your computer and browsing activity if you return to the website.
We use both persistent cookies and session cookies as further detailed below. Persistent cookies allow our website to recognise you when you return to our site another time. This provides us with useful analytics that help us optimise our website and your visits. Session cookies exist just for the life of your current visit whilst you have your browser open. They are not stored on your hard disk and are erased when you exit your web browser.
If you would like more information on cookies, we recommend the direct.gov.uk internet browser cookies page.
Cookies we use
Sitecore Analytics
Use: we use this type of cookie to understand how our website is being used and in order to deliver content via widgets that we think will be especially relevant to you.
Session cookie: SC_ANALYTICS_SESSION_COOKIE
Persistent cookie: SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIE
Google Analytics
Use: we use this type of cookie to understand how our website is being used in order to improve the user experience. User data is all anonymous.
Persistent cookie: _utma/b/z
Session cookie: ASP.NET_SessionId, _utmc
Social buttons
On many of the pages of our website you will see ‘social buttons’. These allow you to share or bookmark pages on our site. There are buttons for Twitter, Google +1, Facebook ‘Like’, and LinkedIn ‘Share’ on our website.
Social media sites such as Twitter, Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn may collect information about your internet activity, including if your visit to our site and the specific pages you are on if you are logged into their services, even if you don’t click on the button.
You should check the privacy and cookies policies of each of these sites to see how exactly they use your information and to find out how to opt out, or delete, such information.
Further information
Manually managing cookies
There are a number of ways you can manually manage cookies on your computer/device. Read more on the About Cookies website.
If you access the Internet from more than one computer/device it is important to ensure each browser is configured to suit your cookie preferences.
If you wish to block all cookies all the time you can set your browser to do this. It is important to note that blocking cookies may result in some parts of our site not working properly. This may affect your browsing experience.
Contact us
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.