About this website

By reading and continuing to use the site you agree to the following conditions of use.

The Kent County Council website is a service operated by Kent County Council, County Hall, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ, UK.

Disclaimer

We make every effort to make sure that the information on our website is accurate and up-to-date. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. However, we cannot accept responsibility for any loss, damage or inconvenience caused by reliance on inaccurate material contained in this website.

Linking to our site

We welcome and encourage other websites to link to our website. By linking to our website you are deemed to have signed up to these terms and conditions:

• You should not seek to associate Kent.gov.uk with your site or any non-Kent County Council content. Nor should you suggest any endorsement or approval by Kent County Council of you, your website or any non-Kent County Council product or content.
• We do not permit our pages to be loaded into frames on your site. Our pages must load into a user's entire window. Nor should you insert any graphic into, or play audio content over, Kent County Council content, nor allow a pop-up to appear simultaneously with Kent County Council content.
• We do not permit a website to link to kent.gov.uk if it contains material which is libellous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene, or is in any way a breach of the laws of England and Wales or infringes any third party intellectual property rights.
• If we contact you to remove your links to kent.gov.uk, you must do so immediately.

Links to other sites

Certain links, including hypertext links, in our site will take you outside the website. We will make reasonable efforts to ensure the content available on linked websites is not defamatory or offensive.

Inclusion of any link does not imply our endorsement or approval of the linked website, its operator or its content nor are we responsible for the content of any website or web page outside of our website.

Copyright

Unless otherwise stated all materials, computer programs, pictures, audio, video, artistic music and literary works featured on our website or viewable by means of the website, and the selection or arrangement thereof, is copyright of Kent County Council (Copyright Protected Material). Permission is granted to reproduce Copyright Protected Material in any format or media, provided:

• it is solely used for private or educational use;
• it is reproduced accurately and no changes are made to the material;
• it is not used in a derogatory or misleading context; and
• KCC is acknowledged as the owner.

The permission to reproduce the Copyright Protected Material does not extend to:

• copyright works which are identified as being the copyright of a third party;
• audio and/or video conveyed in any webcasts viewable via the Website;
• the coat of arms of KCC; or
• commercial purposes without the express written permission of KCC.

Should you require permission for the above, please contact the owner of the site/page (as stated at the bottom of the relevant page) or, in absence of this information, the Web Manager (see below for details).

Accessibility

We endeavour at all times to make our website as accessible as reasonably possible to all users. In no way does Kent County Council seek to deliberately discriminate against disabled users to access the website service in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Privacy policy

This privacy policy only covers the website at http://www.kent.gov.uk/. Web pages and websites linked to the website are not covered by this policy. By submitting your data you consent to the use of that information as set out below.

Collection of information

We do not use cookies that collect personal information from visitors to the website.

Cookies and logging of IP addresses may be used to enable Kent County Council to monitor site traffic and repeat visitor statistics. The information cannot be used to identify any individual. To read more about cookies and IP addresses please refer to our "Explanation of technical terms" below.

Personal information may be collected from an email sent by, a telephone call from or a Web form completed by a customer using a Website service or as feedback on our services.

For some services we may collect sensitive personal information and in these circumstances we will aim to get your explicit agreement to our using this type of information.

In all cases the information requested will be no more than is necessary to provide the service promised.

Google Analytics

We do not use Google Analytics to track or collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our site.

We will not associate any data gathered from this site with any personally identifying information.

Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google, or try to link an IP address with the identity of the user.

Use of information

Any and all personal information collected is used only to monitor site usage, respond to enquiries or to carry out the service for which the customer supplied the information.

Where personal data is requested through forms, such data is only used for the purpose stated on the form and will not be given or sold to any third parties without your consent.

Retention of information

As a general rule we will not keep information longer than is necessary and while in our possession we will safeguard your personal information according to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Personal data received as part of an enquiry are only retained as long as the enquiry remains open or for processing to obtain statistical information, in which case the data is anonymised.

Personal information collected by cookies is anonymous and held on a temporary basis.

Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998

We will at all times comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Explanation of technical terms

Browser

Used to locate and display web pages via a software application. The most popular ones are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Cookie

Message given to a web browser by a web server. The message is then stored by the browser in a text file called 'cookie.txt'. Cookies are used to enable a website to 'remember' whether a user has visited the site before and possibly to store marketing information about previous visits (items bought last time, pages visited etc.).

Cookies are also used to store temporary information as a user moves from page to page within a site (items in a shopping basket etc.). Such cookies are erased when the user session ends.

This information is converted to number format for statistical purposes, and all information relating to the individual is erased when the user session is ended. Users can set their browser not to allow cookies to be stored in their computer. To do this, please follow the instructions provided with your web browser software.

IP address

If you are connected to the Internet you have one, for example it may look something like this 198.184.98.9

User session

A user's visit to a site begins when the user first accesses any page on a given site and ends after a visitor has left that site and not revisited it within a specified amount of time (normally 20 minutes) or when the user's browser is closed.

Web statistics  

December 2011

• 230,593 people visited the website
• 783,308 pages were viewed on the website

View more statistics for the website.

Web server

Delivers (serves up) web pages to your computer.

Web form

An electronic application form in which the visitor inserts requested information and sends it to the owner of the website using the features available.