Cookie policy

What a cookie is

A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to store, which is then sent back on later visits. Cookies are how sites remember you are signed in — and also how advertising networks follow people between sites.

Under UK rules, cookies that are strictly necessary for a service you have asked for can be set without permission. Everything else — analytics, advertising, personalisation — needs your consent before it is set, not after.

Analytics cookies, with your consent

If you press Accept in the cookie banner, the site loads Google Analytics 4. It records how the site is used: which pages are viewed, how people move through the eligibility checker, and whether an enquiry was sent. It does not receive your name, phone number, email address or postcode, or your answer about benefits and household income.

Google Analytics then sets these cookies on this website:

We use Google's Consent Mode with advertising permanently switched off: advertising storage, advertising user data and ad personalisation are always denied. We do not use Google Analytics for advertising or remarketing.

If you press Reject, or make no choice, nothing is loaded and no analytics cookies are set. The site works exactly the same either way.

Remembering your choice

Your answer is kept in your browser's local storage under the name whs:analytics-consent, with the date you chose. That is strictly necessary storage: it only exists so we do not ask you again on every page. It is never sent to us or to Google.

Changing your mind

Use Cookie settings at the bottom of any page, or the button at the top of this one. If you withdraw consent, analytics stops, the Google Analytics cookies are deleted from this website and the page reloads without them.

The security check on our enquiry forms

When you press send on an enquiry form, the page runs Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise through Firebase App Check. It checks that the enquiry comes from a real browser on this website rather than an automated script, which protects our enquiry system from abuse. It is not loaded until you send an enquiry, and it is used for security only — not for analytics or advertising.

As part of that check, Google's script may set cookies or use your browser's storage. Those are set by Google for this security purpose; how Google handles that information is described in Google's own privacy policy.

What the eligibility checker stores

The eligibility checker holds your answers in the page itself while you move between steps, so that going back does not lose what you have already entered. They are not written to a cookie, and they disappear when you close or reload the page. The postcode you type is used in your browser to work out which nation's schemes apply; it is only sent to us if you choose to leave your details at the end.

One exception: if you type a postcode into the "Check your property" box on one of our guides, it is handed to the checker through your browser's session storage, so it never appears in the web address. The checker deletes it as soon as it has read it, and session storage is cleared when you close the tab anyway.

Hosting

The site is served by Firebase Hosting, a Google service. Requests to the server may be logged by the hosting provider for security and operational reasons, in the way any web server logs requests. That is separate from cookies and does not involve storing anything in your browser.

If this changes

If we add anything else that sets a non-essential cookie, we will update this page and ask you before anything is set. We will not quietly add tracking and rely on a banner to cover it.

Managing cookies yourself

Every major browser lets you view, block and delete cookies for individual sites, usually under privacy or site settings. Blocking cookies does not stop the site working; it simply means analytics cannot run even if you accept.

Related

Our privacy policy covers personal information more broadly, including what happens with the enquiry forms and with analytics data.