When we provide information, we want to make the process easy and reliable. Where we do this on the internet, it sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
These pieces of information are used to: enable us to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task; and measure how many people are accessing information, so that there is enough capacity to ensure that this can be done quickly and easily.
Cookies in the analytics category are opted into by the user through the cookies banner when you first come to the site. Cookies in the essential category are required by the site to run correctly and therefore always need to be on. You can change these settings by clicking the Cookie settings tab at the top centre of your screen.
The table below explains the cookies we use on the consultation area and why.
|
Category |
Name |
Set by |
Duration |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Essential |
has_js |
Application |
Expires at the end of browser session |
Used to record whether or not the user\'s browser has JavaScript enabled. This allows us decide what kind of functionality is supported |
|
Essential |
PHPSESSID |
Application |
23 days |
Track the user's session so that requests and responses can be matched up. This allows log-in functionality to work and prevents certain types of security exploits. |
|
Essential |
cookie-agreed |
Application |
3 months |
Stores whether a user has provided consent for cookies to be stored. |
|
Essential |
cookie-agreed-categories |
Application |
3 months |
Stores which cookies a user has consented to. |
|
Essential |
cookie-agreed-version |
Application |
3 months |
Stores which cookie policy version a user has consented to. |
|
Analytics |
_fbp |
|
3 months |
Enables rich insights about how Facebook users are using this website and for measuring the performance of the website and remarketing purposes. |
|
Analytics |
spin |
|
1 day |
Tracks every time a person visits another Facebook page or clicks a “like” button on a third party website. |
|
Analytics |
fr |
|
3 months |
Allows Facebook to follow your surfing behavior across other websites which have implemented Facebook pixel. |
|
Analytics |
c_user |
|
1 year |
Enables rich insights about how Facebook users are using this website and for measuring the performance of the website and remarketing purposes. |
|
Analytics |
wd |
|
1 week |
This cookie stores the browser window dimensions and is used by Facebook to optimise the rendering of the page. |
|
Analytics |
sb |
|
2 years |
Used by Facebook to improve friend suggestions. |
|
Analytics |
xs |
|
1 year |
Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers. |
|
Analytics |
datr |
|
2 years |
Identifies the web browser being used. |
|
Analytics |
_ga |
Google Analytics |
2 years |
Used to distinguish different users for the purposes of collecting information on site usage. |
|
Analytics |
_gid |
Google Analytics |
24 hours |
Used to distinguish different users for the purposes of collecting information on site usage. |
|
Analytics |
__utma |
Google Analytics |
2 years |
Determines the number of unique visitors to the site. |
|
Analytics |
__utmb |
Google Analytics |
30 minutes |
This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on any site. |
|
Analytics |
__utmc |
Google Analytics |
Expires at the end of browser session |
This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser. |
|
Analytics |
__utmt |
Google Analytics |
10 minutes |
Used to throttle the request rate to Google Analytics. |
|
Analytics |
__utmz |
Google Analytics |
6 months |
This provides information about how you reached the site. |