Wirral.gov.uk puts small files known as ‘cookies’ onto your computer to collect information about how you use 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
Wirral.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. If you don't want us to use cookies you can block them.
Find out more about how to manage and block cookies
How cookies are used on Wirral.gov.uk
Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)
We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use wirral.gov.uk. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements, for example, improving site search.
Google Analytics stores information about:
- the pages you visit on Wirral.gov.uk
- how long you spend on each Wirral.gov.uk page
- how you got to the site
- what you click on while you’re visiting the site
- we don’t collect or store your personal information (for example, 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
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | This helps us count how many people visit wirral.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before | 2 years |
| _gat | Used to manage the rate at which page view requests are made | 10 minutes |
Google Analytics
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _utma | Like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to wirral.gov.uk or to a certain page | 2 years |
| _utmb | This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on wirral.gov.uk | 30 minutes |
| _utmc | This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser | When you close your browser |
| _utmz | This tells us how you reached wirral.gov.uk (e.g. from another website or a search engine) | 6 months |
wirral.gov.uk events
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| analytics_next_page_call | This lets us know the next page you visit on wirral.gov.uk, so we can make journeys better | When you close your browser |
You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.
Our introductory message
You may see a pop-up welcome message when you first visit wirral.gov.uk. We’ll store a cookie so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and knows not to show it again.
Council minutes, agendas and reports
We use Modern.gov software to power our minutes, agendas and reports webpages. The software offers a comprehensive range of features for supporting the democratic process in local authorities and other organisations such as fire and police authorities, housing associations and health services. The domain for this part of the website is democracy.wirral.gov.uk.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| ASP.NET_SessionId | This cookie is essential. The technology running most of the website (pages with filenames ending in .asp) sets a session marker to identify you whilst you are browsing our site. No personal information is stored. | When you close your browser. |
Library Ebooks
We use a service provided by Overdrive.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| session | 18 years | |
| Text size style | When you close your browser | |
| expandme | When you close your browser | |
| WT_FPC | 10 years |
Online Forms
Granicus govService is the system we use to create online forms. This is used by many local government sites in the UK.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| AWSELB | "Amazon Web Services Elastic Load Balancer" - used to direct your request to the appropriate server. No personal information is contained or used. | When you close your browser. |
| firmstep2session | The technology running our eForms solution sets a session marker to identify you while filling out a form. | When you close your browser. |
| firmstep2server | This remembers the name of the server the user is connected to. As we have multiple servers the eForms software must know which is dealing with the request. | When you close your browser. |
Online Payment Portal
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| JSESSIONID | "Amazon Web Services Elastic Load Balancer" - Used to direct your request to the appropriate server. No personal information is contained or used. | When you close your browser. |
| firmstep2session | The technology running our eForms solution sets a session marker to identify you whilst filling out a form. | When you close your browser. |
| firmstep2server | This remembers the name of the server the user is connected to. As we have multiple servers the eForms software must know which is dealing with the request. | When you close your browser. |
Drupal content management system
Wirral Council uses Drupal to power wirral.gov.uk. It is one of the world’s most popular free, open-source web development platforms for building corporate web sites, e-commerce sites and user communities. Drupal is used to power millions of websites worldwide.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Drupal CMS | Drupal CMS – this cookie is used to let the web page know in advance if you have javascript turned on or not. It allows the website to serve up content in a more efficient manner by preventing the need for you to download unnecessary content which can be generated or retrieved later by javascript. This cookie also improves web page load times and responsiveness. | When you close your browser. |
| INGRESSCOOKIE | This first party cookie registers what server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used for load balancing to optimise the user experience. | When you close your browser. |
Cookie preference recorder
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| allowWirralCookies | This cookie records if a user wishes for cookies to be placed on their PC or not. | 3 days |
Services provided by other organisations
Some of the services provided on wirral.gov.uk are provided by other organisations, for example the system used for applying for school places. These services may set additional cookies and, if they do, will have their own cookie policy and link to it.