Cookies policy

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we may store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer or device. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of the Site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the Site and also allows us to improve the Site.

Cookies 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; and
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

Types of cookies used

The Site uses the following categories of cookies:

Site cookies – this allows the Site to link the actions of a user during a browser session so that the Site is able to store certain information whilst the user is browsing the Site.
Google Analytics cookies – Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the Site and volumes of usage.
Hotjar cookies – Hotjar sets cookies to track visitor behaviour on the Site, including click and scroll locations.
Pardot cookies - Pardot is email campaign software we use to manage bulletin newsletters, the cookies allow usage to be tracked from email links.

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

Required cookies

Site cookies

Name	Typical content	Purpose	Expiry
cookie_consent	1	A Boolean value used to remember if the user has dismissed the privacy information banner	No expiry

Optional cookies

Google Analytics

The information from the following cookies will be used by Google in accordance with Google’s privacy policy. For more information on the cookies set by Google Analytics please refer to the Google Analytics website:

Name	Typical content	Purpose	Expiry
_utma	Randomly generated number	This cookie is typically written to the browser upon the first visit to our site from that web browser. This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to our site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that Google Analytics uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure.	2 years
_utmb	Randomly generated number	This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with our site. Each time a user visits a different page on our site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30 minute intervals. This cookie expires when a user pauses on a page on our site for longer than 30 minutes.	30 minutes
_utmc	Randomly generated number	This cookie operates in conjunction with the utmb cookie to determine whether or not to establish a new session for the user. Should a user visit our site, exit the browser and then return to our website within 30 minutes, the absence of the utmc cookie indicates that a new session needs to be established.	End of session
_utmz	Randomly generated number + info on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)	This cookie stores the type of referral used by the visitor to reach our site, whether via a direct method, a referring link, a website search, or a campaign such as an ad or an email link. It is used to calculate search engine traffic, ad campaigns and page navigation within our own site. The cookie is updated with each page view to our site.	6 months