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.

Our use of cookies

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software (Universal Analytics) to collect information about how you use our site. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

  • the pages you visit
  • how long you spend on each
  • how you got to the site
  • what you click on while you’re visiting the site

We do not collect or store your personal information (for example your name or address) so this information can’t be used to identify who you are.

We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Google Analytics sets the following cookies.

Name Purpose Expires
_ga This helps us count how many people visit our site by tracking if you’ve visited before. 2 years
_gid This helps us count how many people visit our site by tracking if you’ve visited before. 24 hours
_gat Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made. 10 minutes

You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies

Sharing content across social networks (AddThis)

We use AddThis social sharing to allow users to easily share content.

AddThis sets the following cookies.

Name Purpose Expires
__atuvc This cookie is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. It stores an updated page share count. 2 years
__atuvs This cookie is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors to share with a range of networking and sharing platforms. 30 minutes