We use cookies on our website to make your experience as easy and simple as possible.
Cookies are small data files that we place on your computer. They improve your experience in a number of ways.
This includes:
- remembering settings and information (like the names of health or social care services you’ve searched for) so you don’t have to keep re-entering them
- measuring how you use the website so we can make sure it meets your needs.
We limit the number of cookies we use on our website and only use cookies that:
- are essential to help you do things on our website
- remember your preferences and the choices to personalise your experience when using our website
- measure how you use the website so we can monitor how our website is performing and make sure it meets your needs.
Cookies do not identify you personally.
Types of cookies and how we use them
First party cookies
First party cookies are our own. We control them and use them to provide information about the way you use our website.
Page style
At the top of every page, there is an option to change the page style to help people view the site more easily. This gives our site better web accessibility. The text size cookie remembers the user’s chosen settings.
Text size
At the top of every page, there is an option to change the size of the text on the website. This gives our site better web accessibility. The page style cookie remembers the user’s page style settings.
Has_js
Some parts of our website use javascript – a web language – to display content. If your web browser has javascript disabled, it helps us to know so that we can display the page to you in another way. This cookie allows our website to know if you have javascript enabled or not.
Third party cookies
Third party cookies are set by other websites. We use their online tools to make our website work better for you.
Measuring website usage through Google analytics
We use Google Analytics to view statistics on the way you use our website. We can check:
- how many people have visited our website and the webpages they view.
- how many times documents (such as project reports) have been downloaded.
- the number of keyword searches.
We use the following third party cookies set by Google Analytics.
_utma
This cookie generates the number of unique visits to our website. It expires after two years.
_utmb
This cookie generates a number of user sessions. It expires after 30 minutes.
_utmc
This cookie works with the _utmb cookie to generate a number of user sessions. It expires after 30 minutes.
_utmz
This cookie records the way you reach our website. It expires after six months.
For more information, please read Google’s Privacy Policy at www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
Measuring website usage through Hotjar
We use Hotjar to monitor how you use our website. You can find out more about the cookies Hotjar may use by visiting their website here.
WordPress cookies
To update the content on our website we use a system call WordPress. This system uses cookies. You can find out more about the cookies WordPress uses by visiting their website here.
Managing the cookies on your computer
You can restrict or block cookies set by our website and others by changing the settings in your browser. Doing this however may impact the way our website works for you in the future.
Visit the About Cookies website at www.aboutcookies.org to find out more about restricting or blocking cookies in different browsers.
You can also learn more about cookies at www.gov.uk/support/cookies on the DirectGov website.
