When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:
enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast
analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with govt services so we can make them better.
You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the article, How government websites use cookies.
If you'd like to learn how to remove cookies set on your device, visit www.aboutcookies.org
First-party cookies
| Purpose | Cookie name | Where used | Typical content | Expires |
| Transaction-specific | ASPSESSIONIDQCRBSRDR | Users who login to the site | Randomly generated character string | When user exits browser |
Third-party cookies
We use Google Analytics to measure and analyse information about use of this website.
| Purpose | Cookie name | Typical content | Expires |
| Web analytics | _utma | randomly generated number | 2 years |
| Web analytics | _utmb | randomly generated number | 30 minutes |
| Web analytics | _utmc | randomly generated number | when user exits browser |
| Web analytics | _utmz | randomly generated number plus information on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search) | 6 months |
For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Code website .
How to control and delete cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.
However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.