When we provide services we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. These services are delivered on the internet, which sometimes involves placing small amounts of information as files on your computer, mobile phone or other device. These small files are known as cookies. Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally the information from them is used to improve services for you through:
- 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 that they are fast
- analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with our services so that we can make them better
How to Manage Cookies
First party cookies
We use cookies in several places – we’ve listed each of them below with more details about why we use them and how long they will last.
| NAME |
PURPOSE |
TYPICAL CONTENT |
EXPIRES |
| ASP.NET_SessionId |
Enables the server to recognise the user in their current browsing session. |
Used to temporarily store non-sensitive data. |
When the browsing session ends. |
| style |
Used to remember the user's style preference. |
Standard View, Print View, High Visibility |
24 Hours |
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.
How to control and delete cookies
However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our website, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You’ll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual. To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.