Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by websites and sometimes by emails. They provide useful information to organisations, which helps to make your visits to their websites more effective and efficient. We use cookies to ensure that we are able to understand how you use our website and to ensure that we can make improvements to our websites. Cookies do not contain personal or confidential information about you.

We use cookies to ensure that you get the best from our website. The first time that you visit our website you will be asked to consent to the use of cookies, and we suggest that you agree to allow the cookies to be active on your device whilst you visit and browse to ensure that you experience our website fully.

We use three types of cookies on our website:

• Session cookies that are deleted after each visit
• Persistent/tracking cookies that remain in place across multiple visits to our websites
• Third party cookies that are used by other parties, for example Google Analytics

Session cookies and persistent cookies are necessary in order for you to use our website. These cookies can be deleted via your browser, but this will restrict the functions that you are able to carry out on our websites. For more information on how to disable cookies in your browser please see the Information Commissioner’s Office website. (http://www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/)

Session cookies expire when you leave the website and are not stored on your computer and do not contain any personal data.

Persistent cookies last beyond your visit to our website. We use Google Analytics on our website. This is a tracking cookie which enables us to track how popular a site is and to record visitor trends over time. The cookie does not contain any personal data, but it does contact your computer’s IP address to determine where in the world you are accessing the website from and to track your page visits within the site.

These cookies are usually supplied by business partners and help us to filter out information which is not relevant to you.

You can accept or block any cookies from any website through your browser settings. For more information on how to disable cookies in your browser please see the Information Commissioner’s Office website. (http://www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/).

Please note that if you share your computer, accepting or blocking the use of cookies will affect all users of that computer.

We may use data from Google’s interest-based advertising or third-party audience data (such as age, gender and interests) with Google Analytics.

For more information about cookies visit the Information Commissioners website www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies