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 computer, mobile phone or tablet. These are known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
Contents
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- How to manage your cookies
- Measuring website performance and usage
- Cookies set by third party services
- Strictly necessary cookies
- Cookies set by other services
How to manage your cookies
When you visit this website, we will set essential cookies necessary for the service to work.
We’d like to set additional cookies so we can remember your settings, understand how people use the site and make improvements. We will not set cookies that collect personally identifiable information about you.
Before setting any additional cookies, we will ask if you want to accept or reject them. If you choose to accept, you can change your mind later and withdraw consent by selecting the cookie settings button displayed in the bottom left corner of every page and then selecting ‘Withdraw consent’.
You can also choose to restrict or block the cookies that are set by this website, or any other website, through your browser settings. Your browser is the way you access the internet, for example Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox and Safari are commonly used browsers. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how you can restrict or block cookies.
For information on how to restrict or block cookies on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
Alternatively, you will also find details on how to restrict or delete cookies on a wide variety of browsers, as well as more general information about cookies, on the About Cookies website.
Be aware that restricting cookies using browser settings can prevent websites working for you.
Current Settings
We use Google Analytics to collect anonymous information about how people use the site and how well it is performing. We do this to make sure it’s meeting people’s needs and to understand how we could meet those needs better.
We do not allow Google to use or share the data about how you use the site. We do not collect or store your personal details such as your name or address. We cannot identify who you are.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on.
| Name of cookie |
Purpose |
Expires |
_ga |
Used by Google Analytics to distinguish visitors. |
Up to two years |
_ga_<container-id> |
Used by Google Analytics to identify and track an individual session with your device. |
Up to two years |
Further information on cookies set by Google Analytics
Strictly necessary cookies
This site sets strictly necessary cookies to remember if you have received the cookie warning message so that this message doesn’t appear more than once.
| Name of cookie |
Purpose |
Expires |
consent-settings |
Used remember your preference for accepting or rejecting cookies we set. |
31 days |
Cookies set by other services
Related services, including those provided by the Department of Communities, are hosted and maintained separately from this site. These services may set more cookies and, if so, may have their own cookie policy.
In particular, the Feedback page uses Google Forms, which sets additional cookies to function.
| Name of cookie |
Purpose |
Expires |
SIDCC, __Secure-1PSIDCC, __Secure-3PSIDCC |
Used by Google Forms to protects the user data from unauthorised access, and to store user preferences. |
1 year |
NID |
This cookie is used by Google Forms to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language. |
6 months |
COMPASS, S |
Cookies used by Google Forms, Sheets and Docs to manage Forms behaviour. |
11 minutes |
For more information, see Google’s Privacy & Terms.