INFORMATION ABOUT OUR USE OF COOKIES

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site and clicking “accept” on our cookie banner, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use the following cookies: 

  • Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website or make use of e-billing services. 
  • Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. 
  • Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
  • Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Cookie Name Purpose
Cookie agreement set cookie-agreed To record that you have accepted the site storing cookies (via the pop-up banner shown to you when you first visit the site).
Session cookie A long string of hexadecimal beginning with SSESS To record that you are logged in to the site under your specific username and recognises you between logins.  This cookie is only set when you log in to the site, and is removed once you log out.
Google Analytics Various (including _ga, _gat, _gid) Set by Google Analytics, which we use to understand where people are going on our site, improve your site user experience over time and monitor site performance.  You can read more about Google Analytics’ privacy policies and the cookies they set here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245

 

HOW TO BLOCK AND REMOVE COOKIES

You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site. For further information as to how to remove or block cookies from being set, please visit www.aboutcookies.org

Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 2 million seconds (equivalent to just over 23 days).