What Are Cookies?

Cookies are stored on your computer and are very small text files that save when you visit some websites. We use cookies to make our website easier for you to use. If you wish you can remove any cookies already stored on your computer, but these may prevent you from using certain parts of our website.

How cookies are used on this site

We want to make the services we provide, easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing a small amount of information on your device, for example your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as “cookies”. We do not use these to identify you personally, or to hold any personal data.

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 the same task • recognising that you may already have provided a username and password so that you don’t need to keep entering these into every web page when requested • measuring how many people are using our services so they can be improved and there is enough capacity to ensure that they are fast

If you know how you can easily manage these small files yourself. You can find guidance on managing cookies on the Directgov website.

Cookies used by this service

There are two types of cookie: Persistent cookies remain on your computer for a specified time and so are saved to your computer’s hard disk. We use persistent cookies to: • identify that a registered user has returned • securely remember your login User ID – only if you have asked us to do so • understand how you use our site and obtain information on website usage – as described above

Session cookies are deleted when you close your browser and are usually not saved to your computer’s hard disk. We use session cookies to: • hold some types of non-private information you provide while using an interactive tool on the website • identify that you have logged in to the site • hold your search criteria while you are still carrying out a search of the website • collect information on website usage – as described above
Cookies for measuring use of services By understanding how people use the website, National Buyers can improve the information provided. This also ensures that the service is available when you want it and fast. National Buyers use a number of different methods of gathering this data, including services provided by the following companies.

Google Analytics
Name:  _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
 Expires: 2 years
Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
 Expires: 30 minutes
Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
 Expires: when user exits browser
Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number and information about how the page was reached (eg directly or via a link, organic search or paid search) Expires: 6 months
Name: __utmmobile
Typical content: randomly generated number Expires: 2 years

Click here for more information about Google’s Privacy Policy. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visithttp://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

AdInsight AdInsight is a phone call analytics tool, used by companies to understand the customer interaction between the website and the call centre. Cookie files are used by the AdInsight system to help demonstrate this journey so that we can improve our customer experience.These cookies are used to help AdInsight collect information about how visitors use our website, for our exclusive use. Therefore, these cookies are classified as ‘first party’ ie data is not being gathered for anyone else. We use the information gathered to compile reports that help us to understand how people interact with our business. The cookies store unique identifiers that allow AdInsight to track a visitors progress through our website over time. They are listed below: ‘adiV’The adiV cookie contains an identifier number which is used by AdInsight to track a visitor over time. This allow AdInsight to show multiple visits made by a customer over time from the same browser. This cookie is set to expire 1 year after the visitor leaves the website.’adiVi’The adiVi cookie contains an identifier number which is used by AdInsight to help track a visitors path while they are on the website. This cookie is set to expire 30 minutes after the visitor leaves the website.’adiLP’The adiLP cookie is used to help track visitors who have multiple tabs open in the samebrowser to prevent errors in tracking.Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.