Most websites you visit will use cookies to help customise your experience. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Use of cookies on our website
Cookies
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:
- Enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
- Recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
- Measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast
You can manage these small files yourself and learn more about them through Internet browser cookies - what they are and how to manage them.
Cookies for Improving Service
Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage, e.g. website statistics. This to ensure that the service is available when you want it and fast.
Performance Cookies
Name: _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years
Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 minutes
Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser
Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number + info on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
Expires: 6 months
For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Code website.
Name: cc_cookie_accept
Typical Content: Plain text which stores that you have clicked the accept cookies banner on the website. So it is not shown on every page.
Expires: 1 year
Name: asp.net_sessionid
Typical Content: Randomly generated string
Expires: On browser close (session cookie)
Name: DBANON
Typical Content: Randomly generated string
Expires: 1 month
Third party cookies
We sometimes embed video content and photos from websites such as YouTube and flickr. Pages with this embedded content may present cookies from these websites. Similarly, when you use one of the share buttons on our website, a cookie may be set by the service you have chosen to share content through. You should check the relevant third party website for more information about these cookies.
How to manage cookies
If you wish to restrict, block or delete cookies from our website - or any other website - you can use your browser to do this. Each browser is different so check the 'Help' menu of your particular browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.
Please bear in mind that if you do this, certain personalised features of this website cannot be provided to you.