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Cookie Policy

This page describes our cookies policy for www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk

www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk puts small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

  • Measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
  • Remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk cookies aren’t used to identify you personally. You’ll normally see a message on the site before we store a cookie on your computer. Find out more about how to manage cookies

How cookies are used on www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk. Google Analytics stores information about:

  • How you got to the site
  • What you click on while you’re visiting the site
  • How long you spend on the site
  • How long you spend on each link page you click through to
  • What you click on once at the page you’ve clicked through to

We don’t collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this information can’t be used to identify who you are. We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google Analytics sets the following cookies:

Universal Analytics

  • _ga: this helps us count how many people visit www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before – it expires after 2 years
  • _gat: used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made – it expires after 10 minutes

Google Analytics

  • _utma: like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk or to a certain page – it expires after 2 years
  • _utmb: this works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk – it expires after 30 minutes
  • _utmc: this works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser – it expires when you close your browser
  • _utmz: this tells us how you reached this website (e.g. from another website or a search engine) – it expires after 6 months

YouTube videos

We use YouTube to show videos on some www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk pages. YouTube sets cookies when you visit one of these pages.

  • _use_hitbox: this is a randomly generated number that identifies your browser – it expires when you close your browser
  • VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE: lets YouTube count the views of embedded YouTube videos – it expires after 9 months

Cookies message

You may see a banner when you visit www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk inviting you to accept cookies or review your settings. We’ll set cookies so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and not to show it again, and also to store your settings.

  • cookies_policy: saves your cookie consent settings – it expires after 1 year
  • cookies_preferences_set: lets us know that you’ve saved your cookie consent settings – it expires after 1 year

Government services

Most services we link to are run by different government departments, for example, Cabinet Office or the HM Treasury. These services may set additional cookies and, if so, will have their own cookies policy.