Cookies are small text files which are downloaded to your computer, tablet or mobile phone when you visit a website or application. The website or application may retrieve these cookies from your web browser (eg Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome) each time you visit, so they can recognise you, remember your preferences and provide you with a more secure online experience.

Generally, cookies are very useful and are a common method used by almost every website you visit because they help to make your online experience as smooth as possible. For security reasons, many websites will not function at all without the use of cookies.

We use a "session cookie" that is used to identify an authorised user whilst they are logged in to the system, this cookie is destroyed when you log out of the system, we also use a cookie to remember you if you choose to use this feature.

Other cookies that we use do not contain any information to identify an individual person, but are instead used to identify a browser on an individual machine.

We use third party services in order to monitor usage and improve performance of the website.

• Google Analytics
  gathering aggregated information about site traffic to monitor and predict usage patterns
• Hotjar
  tracking end user behaviour and interaction with the system to identify areas where we can improve functionality

These third party sites may also create cookies.

If you prefer, you can restrict, block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings but that may mean that the website will not work properly.