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Help - Cookies
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I put small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to: Work with our advertizing to create a more useful experience and to measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs. In some cases they might be there to remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again.

Our cookies aren’t used to identify you personally.

You’ll sometimes see a message on the site before we store a cookie on your computer.

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use our websites. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements, eg improving site search.

Google Analytics stores information about:

The pages you visit on our sites
How long you spend on each of our pages.
How you got to the site.
What you click on while you’re visiting the site.

We don’t collect or store your personal information (eg your name or address)
so this information can’t be used to identify who you are.

We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Google Analytics sets the following cookies:

Universal Analytics
Name Purpose Expires
_ga This helps us count how many people visit our sites by tracking if you’ve visited before 2 years
_gat Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made 10 minutes
Google Analytics
Name Purpose Expires
_utma Like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to GOV.UK or to a certain page 2 years
_utmb This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on GOV.UK 30 minutes
_utmc This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser when you close your browser
_utmz This tells us how you reached our sites (eg from another website or a search engine) 6 months
GOV.UK events
Name Purpose Expires
analytics_next_page_call This lets us know the next page you visit on our sites, so we can make journeys better when you close your browser
govuk_contact_referrer This lets us know the last page you visited before using the contact our sites form 1 day

You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Our introductory message

You may see a pop-up welcome message when you first visit our sites. Sometimes we’ll store a cookie so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and knows not to show it again.
Name Purpose Expires
Our cookies saves a message to let us know that you’ve seen our cookie message for a period of time.


Name Purpose Expires
Our cookies are set to remember information you’ve entered into a form when when you close your browser.

YouTube videos

We use YouTube to provide videos on some pages of the site. YouTube sets cookies when you visit one of these pages.
Name Purpose Expires
_use_hitbox This is a randomly generated number that identifies your browser. When you close your browser
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE Lets Youtube count the views of embedded Youtube videos 9 months

Browser upgrade prompt

We log a cookie the first time you visit our sites us to let us know you’ve visited once.

If you’re using an out-of-date browser the next time you visit, we’ll show you a message suggesting you upgrade.

We’ll also save a cookie that lets us know you don’t want to see the prompt if you dismiss it.

Name Purpose Expires

Sometimes our cookies are prompting you to upgrade an out-of-date browser until after your first visit for a period of time.
Our cookies saves a message to let us know you’ve seen and dismissed the browser upgrade prompt for a period of time.

Our performance survey

Sometimes we might select some users to take part in a survey. Sometimes if you take part, or dismiss the survey, we’ll save a cookie that lets us know you’ve seen the message so that we don’t show it to you again.
Name Purpose Expires
Our cookies saves a message to remember if you’ve taken the survey or dismissed it for a period of time.

Sometimes we use a site to collect responses to the survey. If you take part, the site will save extra cookies to your computer to track your progress through it.

Multivariate testing

We sometimes test different versions of pages with different users to see which work better. We’ll save a cookie so that you consistently see the same version when browsing our sites.
Name Purpose Expires
Our cookies remember which version of the page you were shown for a period of time.

Cookie Domains

doubleclick.net addthis.com mathtag.com bluekai.com scorecardresearch.com google.com, the web address of the website that led you here as well.

Various cookies used on the websites that this page covers are:

Google+, AddThis, _atuvs, pref, uid, uidr, bkdc, bku, uuid, uuidc, bt2, di2, vc, loc, um. These cookies are used for various purposes and perform well known purposes and some other purposes such as custom functions for the website, session identifiers

By using this site you are possibly affected by the cookies contained in it however little that may affect you. You can leave the site if you feel that they are a problem.

This group of sites use https://silktide.com/tools/cookie-consent/ for the "cookie consent" website and Sitebeam.net to test the work done

Last updated: September 28, 2015

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