Cookies

When we provide services, we want to make them easy to use, 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.

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

• recognising that you may already have given an email address/website when you leave a blog comment, meaning you don’t need to re-type that information for every comment you leave
• measuring how many people are using our website via Google Analytics, so the website can be made easier to use, and more suited to your needs

You can manage these small files yourself.  You can find out how to do this, and learn more about Cookies in general here.

Our use of cookies

The following list outlines exactly what cookies this website uses, and what they are used for:

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and what content is most popular. This helps to ensure that our website is responding to your needs in the best way possible.  Google Analytics sets the following cookies:

• __utma (Expiry: 2 years)
• __utmb (Expiry: 30 minutes)
• __utmc (Expiry: At end of session)
• __utmz (Expiry: 6 months)

Google Services (Google+, YouTube, etc)

We use various Google services to allow users to view and share content more effectively.  Google may set the following 3rd party cookies to store user preferences and information:

• PREF (Expiry: 2 years)
• GAPS (Expiry: 6 months)
• NID (Expiry: 6 months)