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What cookies do we use?

About cookies

You may have heard of internet cookies…you may know all about them. To confirm, cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites you visit.

Cookies allow us to identify you (or, more accurately, your computer) when you visit our website. Knowing how often people are visiting each page of our website helps us work out how and where to improve our website.

By continuing to use our website, you consent to the use of cookies (including third-party cookies) as described in this policy. This cookie policy is part of our [Link: Privacy Policy].

Types of cookie

Categories

Necessary cookies help make our website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

Performance cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.

Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. The intention is to display content and ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable.

Persistent cookies and session cookies

Persistent cookies remain on a visitor’s device for a set amount of time. This means for example that we can identify when a site visitor is a repeat visitor or new to us.

Session cookies are created temporarily and last for as long as your browser window is open, being automatically deleted after you close your browser. These allow us to link the actions of a user during a visit to the website, to provide a consistent experience.

The cookies we use

Details about the cookies we use are set out in the table below. Some of these are third party cookies – see the section on third party cookies below for more information.

Cookie Purpose  Duration 
PHPSESSID The PHPSESSID cookie is native to PHP and enables websites to store serialised state data. On the Action website it is used to establish a user session and to pass state data via a temporary cookie, which is commonly referred to as a session cookie. As the PHPSESSID cookie has no timed expiry, it disappears when the session is closed. Session
DYNSRV This cookie is added by our load balancer to track which web server to send the visitor to. Its purpose is to improve the performance of the website. Session
has_js This cookie records whether your browser has JavaScript enabled. Session
_ga This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 2 years
_gat This is a Google Analytics cookie. It is used to throttle request rates. 1 minute
_gat_UA-1360665-8 This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 10 minutes
_gid This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 1 day
_utmz This is a Google Analytics cookie. It identifies the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached our website. 6 months
_utmt This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 10 minutes
_utmc This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps to identify unique sessions. Session
_utmb This is a Google Analytics cookie. It helps to identify unique sessions. 30 minutes after inactivity
_utma This is a Google Analytics cookie. It identifies unique visitors to our website. 2 years after each update
vuid Our website uses Vimeo to embed videos from our Vimeo channel as well as other channels. You can find Vimeo’s privacy policy at https://vimeo.com/privacy. 2 years
__cfduid, optimizelyEndUserId These cookies are used to by Cloudflare to support performance optimisation. They do not store any personally identifiable information. You can find Cloudflare’s privacy policy at https://www.cloudflare.com/security-policy
cookie_notice This cookie is used to remember your preference for accepting the use of cookies.
1P_JAR, SID, SAPISID, APISID, SSID, HSID, NID Google sets a number of cookies on any page that includes a Google Map. They include a mixture of pieces of information to measure the number and behaviour of Google Maps users. Mixture of session cookies and other cookies expiring after 2 years.
pl, fr, datr, xs, dpr, c_user, sb, wd, act, presence These cookies are used by Facebook to support social sharing and the integration of Facebook services. These cookies include session cookies and cookies lasting for up to 2 years. See Facebook’s privacy policy for more information.
__unam, __sharethis_cookie_test__ The “__unam” cookie is set as part of the ShareThis service and monitors “click-stream” activity, e.g. web pages viewed, navigation from page to page, time spent on each page etc. The ShareThis service only personally identifies you if you have separately signed up with ShareThis for a ShareThis account and given them your consent. See the ShareThis privacy policy for more information. 15 months
_eventqueue This cookie stores an array of mouse events that can’t be guaranteed to be logged to our servers before the current page is unloaded. These events can then be processed and logged on the subsequent page.  10 minutes
heatmaps_g2g_xxxxxxxxx This cookie tells our tracking code to log data about where a visitor is clicking on a site to send back to our servers and later used to generate a heatmap report of clicks on that page. 1 hour
_first_pageview This cookie is set on the first page view of a session. It is used to make our tracking code more efficient, so certain processes are only run on a visitor’s initial page view. 10 minutes
catAccCookies This cookie is used to remember your preference for accepting the use of cookies. 2 years
_jsuid Clicky sets the “_jsuid” cookie, which allows Clicky to create a traffic report. 20 years
_pk_id.1.f89c This is a Matomo cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 28 days
_pk_ses.1.f89c This is a Matomo cookie. It helps us monitor the use and performance of our website. 30 minutes

Third party cookies

First party cookies are the cookies that are set by this website; third party cookies are set by other websites.

This website uses cookies provided by other organisations to support functions such as statistical performance analysis, rich media functionality and social sharing. These are third party cookies. You can read privacy policies from these third parties below:

  • We use Matomo (Piwik) for statistical performance analysis. This information is aggregated and therefore anonymous. Matomo’s privacy policy is at https://matomo.org/privacy/.

Control your cookie settings

If you want, you can block cookies by changing the settings on your browser – we have set out below links to the ‘Help’ pages of some major browsers which explain how you can do this. Blocking the cookies we use may have an adverse impact upon the presentation of some or all of our website.

General guidance on how to manage your cookies can be found here:

Specific guidance on how to manage cookie options for common website browsers can be found here: