To make this site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device. Most big websites do this too.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, meaning you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.

What types of cookie do we use?

Basically, there are four types of cookie:

  • strictly necessary;
  • performance;
  • functionality, and
  • targeting.

We may use any of the above four types of cookie from time to time. Some information about each type of cookie follows. Strictly necessary cookies are essential, as they enable you to move around our website and use its features. An example is the cookie to say you have/have not allowed cookies to be used on this site. Performance cookies collect information about how you have used our website. An example is Google Analytics, which is used to track basic user behaviour on this site to enable us to improve the user’s experience. Targeting cookies may be used by advertising partners or other third parties to deliver advertising relevant to your interests. These cookies can remember that your device has visited a site or service, and may also be able to track your device’s browsing activity on other sites or services other than our website. This information may be shared with organisations outside our website, such as advertisers and/or advertising networks to deliver the advertising, and to help measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, or other business partners for the purpose of providing aggregate service usage statistics and aggregate service testing. Functionality cookies allow sites/services to remember how you logged in, when you logged in or out, and possibly anything you’ve done on a site while logged in. The information these cookies collect may be anonymous, and they are not used to track your browsing activity on other sites or services.

How long will cookies stay on my device?

The amount of time a cookie stays on your device is variable. Most cookies expire after the end of your browsing session but others persist for longer.

First and third party cookies

First-party cookies are those that belong to our website. Third-party cookies are those that another party places on your device via our site. They may be placed on your device by someone providing a service for us or by our business partners, so that they can use them to advertise products and services to you elsewhere on the Internet.

How to control cookies

You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your device and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work, however. There is also type of cookie called a ‘flash cookie’, which is not covered by the above – to delete these go here: https://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html