Cookies, cookie bar and cookie law
What are cookies?
We put small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.
Cookies are used to:
- measure how you use the website, so that it can be updated and improved based on your needs
- remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again
Our cookies cannot read other data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. We do not use cookies for collecting personal user information.
Why do we have a cookies bar appearing on our website?
We have a bar that appears when you come to our website.
This highlights that our website uses cookies.
We need to make you aware that cookies exist, to comply with cookie law; the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR).
When you see the cookie bar, you can:
- accept all cookies and continue
- reject non-necessary cookies and continue (some features of the website won't work)
- choose to accept or reject non-necessary cookies, based on their function (some features of the website may not work, based on your choice)
- disable cookies in your web browser (this will have an impact on your experience using this website and, if you choose to disable cookies, this will happen every website you visit with the same web browser)
We regularly review the cookies in use on our website and will update this statement when necessary.
Cookies we use
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| __cf_bm | fonts.net | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of the website. | 1 day |
| PHPSESSID | Us | This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. | Session |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | Microsoft | Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. | Session |
| Recite.Persist | Recite Me | Used by Recite Me to deliver accessibility and translation services. Read Recite Me's cookie statement. | Session |
| Recite.Preferences | Recite Me | Used by Recite Me to remember preferences. Read Recite Me's cookie statement. | Session |
| astun | Other | No description. | Session |
| atMyCouncil | Other | No description. | Past |
| atLocation | Other | No description. | Past |
| TestCookie | Us | No description. | Session |
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 2 years | |
| _gid | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 1 day | |
| _gat | Google uses this cookie to restrain request rate, thereby limiting the collection of data on high traffic websites. | 1 minute | |
| _gat_gtag_UA_# | Google uses this cookie to distinguish users. | 1 minute | |
| _gcl_au | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using its services. | 3 months |
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| _hjid | Hotjar | This is a Hotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page using the Hotjar script. | 1 year |
| _hjFirstSeen | Hotjar | Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. | 30 minutes |
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | Hotjar | Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. | 2 minutes |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | Hotjar | Hotjar sets this cookie to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a true/false flag set by the cookie. | 30 minutes |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | Hotjar | Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. | 2 minutes |
Page last updated 17 November 2021.