Privacy and Cookie Policies

Information Collected and Why:

• Using analytics tools we collect information about your internet browser to help us form our website to suit our regular visitors.  There is more detail about this in our Cookies explanation below.

• If you make an enquiry we use your email address to acknowledge your enquiry and generally communicate with you about your enquiry.  We might email you about other information but will stop if you ask us to.

• If you email us with an enquiry we will generally keep that email for a reasonable amount of time.

• We will will not pass on information to any other party.

Cookies

If your browser settings allow it, this website uses cookies.  These are explained below.  You should note that if you set your browser to disallow first party cookies then certain functions will not work.  The information stored in cookies does not identify you personally.

The UK Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, as amended in 2011, say that websites are required to obtain user consent to use certain cookies.

Session Cookie

This website places a "session" cookie on your computer or whatever device you are using to view the site.  This cookie holds a session identifier, a string of letters and numbers, that is used by our website to maintain continuity as you browse between the different pages.  Session cookies are destroyed when you close your browser.  This session identifier is used to "maintain state" across the website.  The website uses an adaptive/fluid page layout and adjusts the page layout to suit your browser width setting.  Once done, this information is remembered between pages which reduces the time taken to reformat subsequent pages and reduces the visual disturbances between pages.  Although not "strictly necessary", this is intended to make your visit a better experience, especially when viewed on a mobile device.  There are no privacy implications and consent is not required according to the guidelines from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) issued in December 2011 and May 2012.

Just to reiterate, the session cookie is destroyed when you close your browser so the processes outlined above have to start again if you visit our website at a later time.

First Party Persistent Analytics Cookies

Our pages on this website two third party agents, Google Analytics and StatCounter, to collect basic information about your Internet browser, and to recognise and count visitors as they browse the site.  This helps us form and improve the way our website works to suit our regular visitors.  Included in this information is the IP address of your Internet connection and this might be used to identify your country and other location details.  This location information, although not always accurate, helps us to further understand the needs of our website visitors.

Google Analytics can use "first party" session cookies and "persistent" cookies to carry out this task.  Unlike the session cookie, which is destroyed when you close your browser, the "persistent" cookie is stored on your hard drive, or in some other nonvolatile memory, and remains there for a period of time unless you delete it.  Persistent cookies are used to record multiple visits.  First party cookies can only be retrieved when you visit our website and not any other website.  We don't see the IP address that Google Analytics collects, just the associated location information.  Our Google Analytics account has data sharing settings that don't allow Google to share the data with anyone else.  You can read more about Google Analytics, including a tool to let you opt out of all Google Analytics data collection, on their Policies and Principles web page.

Guidelines from the UK ICO state that the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, as amended 2011, requires user consent to use cookies for website analytical purposes.  However, Versions 2 and 3 of the guidance, dated December 2011 and May 2012, also indicate that first party analytical cookies are highly unlikely to receive regulatory attention provided the use of such cookies is made clear to the user.  We therefore believe that Versions 2 and 3 of the ICO guidance allow us to use Google Analytics without obtaining consent.

We mention that we also use StatCounter for analytical purposes but we have configured StatCounter not to use any cookies at all.  While this restricts the analytical information available to us, StatCounter still collects information, including the IP address, which we find very useful.  Because we are not using any cookie in the configuration, we do not require user consent to use this tool.

For a comprehensive guide about cookies, including how to control and delete them, see aboutcookies.org.

Contact

If you have any concerns about privacy or security then do not hesitate to contact us with your questions or views.  You can contact us using any of the methods outlined in the Contact page.