Website terms and conditions
Data protection information and terms and conditions for using this site.
On this page
About this website
This site is owned by Oxfordshire County Council and operated by ICT. In this notice, we explain the terms on which Oxfordshire County Council provides the information on this site. By accessing Oxfordshire County Council's website you are agreeing to the terms set out below. If you have any questions or comments please contact Web Services.
Changes to these conditions
Oxfordshire County Council may change the terms and conditions for using this site. The current terms will be displayed on these pages.
Choice of law and jurisdiction
If any dispute arises out the use of this website you agree that these terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with English law and be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
Data
Oxfordshire County Council is committed to the highest standards of quality in the information provided on this site. Despite our best efforts, the information contained within this website may become out of date over time. If you think that there are any errors or out of date information please contact Web Services, saying which page is in error. Thank you for your help.
Intellectual property rights
Oxfordshire County Council owns the copyright and all other intellectual property rights associated with the content of this website except where otherwise stated. You are welcome to print individual pages or store them in electronic form on a computer/device for your own personal use. You may not reproduce, modify, broadcast, use for financial gain, or use for anything other than personal use any material on this site without first getting permission from the copyright holders or owners concerned.
Register for an account
Register for an account on our website to have updates sent to you by email. Other account benefits include:
- Track the progress of your reports.
- Online forms are pre-filled with your personal details.
- Save partially completed forms to complete later.
Using any information provided on the site
While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site Oxfordshire County Council accepts no responsibility for any errors, omissions, or misleading statements on these pages. In line with this, Oxfordshire County Council is not liable for any action you may take as a result of relying on such information or advice or for any loss or damage suffered by you as a result of taking this action.
Disclaimer for links to other sites
Oxfordshire County Council's website may include links to other websites to help you find other relevant information quickly and easily. Oxfordshire County Council does not endorse or approve the contents of any third party websites to which these pages are linked and does not accept any liability for action you may take as a result of relying on information or advice obtained from such sites.
Online payments
These terms and conditions ('Terms') apply to all purchases of products from the Oxfordshire County Council of County Hall, New Road, Oxford OX1 1ND made by you on this website.
Terms
By purchasing any products from this website you are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions ('Website Terms'). Where there is any inconsistency between the Terms and the Website Terms, the Terms shall prevail.
Placing your order
Your order represents an offer to us to purchase a product or products which is accepted by us when we (a) receive payment in full and (b) send e-mail confirmation to you that we have dispatched the relevant product to you.
Price
Product prices and additional charges for postage and packing are as published on the website for the relevant products on the date of your order. All prices include value added tax where chargeable (and any other relevant taxes) at the prevailing rate from time to time.
Where, for any reason, we have posted an incorrect price on the website, we are entitled to cancel your order and issue you with a refund for the amount you have paid (see Refunds) after which you can resubmit your order for the product at the correct price.
Payment
All sums due to us for the products must be paid in pounds sterling (£).
Import and export duties
You are responsible for any import or export duties.
Refunds
Where we are unable to supply the products you have ordered for any reason, we will issue you with a refund within 30 days of your order, by crediting the card with which you paid for your order.
For any other refunds payable under the Terms, we will credit the card with which you paid for your order.
Delivery
We will deliver the products to the address specified in your order within 30 days of the day after we receive your order unless you agree otherwise.
What to do if you do not receive what you ordered or the products are damaged or defective in any way
If the products which we deliver to you are not what you ordered or are damaged or defective in any way, please let us know as soon as you can. We will then either (at your request) refund you the amount you paid for the products or replace the products you received with products which conform to the ones you ordered.
Your right to cancel
You are entitled to cancel your order (by letter, fax or email only) within 8 working days of receipt of the products unless the products you have purchased have been personalised for you (e.g. birth certificate). You must take reasonable care of the products while they are in your possession.
If you cancel your order, you are responsible for arranging and paying for the return of the products to us. We will refund the money you paid for the products within 30 days of notice from you that you have cancelled your order.
Warranty and acknowledgement
You warrant that you are fully legally entitled to purchase the products you order on this website and that all information you provide about yourself is true, accurate, current, complete and not misleading.
You acknowledge that you are responsible for paying all charges relating to your use of this website (e.g. connection and ISP charges).
Liability
Save as precluded by law, our liability to you is limited to the price paid by you for the product which you ordered and we will not be responsible for any business loss suffered by you (e.g. loss of profits) or indirect or consequential loss suffered by you as a result of any breach by us of the Terms.
We will not have any liability to you for any loss suffered by you which arises from your use of this website and you acknowledge that you are using this website at your own risk.
Nothing in the Terms limits our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or personal injury or death caused by our negligence.
Your statutory rights
Nothing in the Terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer.
Indemnity
You will indemnify us against all loss or damage which we may incur as a result of any breach of the Terms by you.
Contacting us
You can contact us by post, telephone and email. Different contact details apply for different products. Please refer to the relevant section of the website for the contact details you require.
Events beyond our reasonable control
We will not be held responsible for any delay or failure to comply with our obligations under the Terms if the delay or failure arises from any cause which is beyond our reasonable control.
Variations to the Terms
We may amend the Terms at any time. All amended terms will be effective on the date they are first published on our website.
Data Protection
We will comply with all relevant data legislation in connection with our obligations under the Terms.
We will use the personal information that you provide to us for the purposes of fulfilling your order and processing payments made by you. This includes passing your personal information to payment service providers, via the Government Gateway, as these providers process the payments for us. We may also use your information in aggregate form in order to analyse purchases made.
Fraud
You acknowledge that we are entitled to provide your personal data to any appropriate body or authority where we suspect you of committing or attempting to commit fraud.
Governing law and jurisdiction
The Terms are governed by and will be construed in accordance with the laws of England and any disputes which arise will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
Links to Amazon from the Library Catalogue
Oxfordshire County Council is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
Amazon provides a lot of additional information that we cannot provide in our online catalogue, such as reader reviews and images of dust-jackets.
If you want to buy a book, then by clicking through from our catalogue to Amazon and placing an order you will generate a small commission for Oxfordshire Libraries, which will be used to improve our service.
Oxfordshire County Council accepts no liability for material contained in websites owned and/or operated by outside organisations and accepts no responsibility for any purchases or other contracts entered into with online providers.
When you order through Amazon.co.uk you are entering a transaction with the supplier, not with Oxfordshire County Council or Oxfordshire Libraries. All queries about your Amazon.co.uk orders should be made to the supplier.
Oxfordshire County Council does not accept liability for any losses, costs, demands, charges, proceedings, damages, expenses and all other liabilities whatsoever arising from the use of the Amazon.co.uk website.
Disclaimer for suppliers/businesses named on the site
Where Oxfordshire County Council provides details of companies, firms or individuals in business directories or other pages on this site the description of the goods or services they provide is based upon information supplied by them. Oxfordshire County Council cannot confirm that they are legally entitled or professionally qualified to carry on a particular trade, business or profession and bear no liability for merely supplying their details. You should check any information obtained from the website before you act upon it.
Trademarks
All trademarks that may appear on the site are acknowledged and are the property of their respective owners.
Interactive areas
The website may include bulletin boards, discussion groups and other public areas that allow feedback to Oxfordshire County Council and interaction between users. Oxfordshire County Council does not control the information posted to these areas but it does expect contributors to comply with the following rules and also to any additional rules that may be introduced for a particular forum (the need to register for instance)
Oxfordshire County Council may delete, move or edit any messages it deems unsuitable without giving a reason.
You are solely responsible for the content of your messages and agree to indemnify Oxfordshire County Council for any loss that we may suffer because of your action.
By submitting messages to our site you are giving Oxfordshire County Council the right to reproduce, adapt, make available, distribute and sub-license the message in whole or in part and in print or electronic form.
Any message you post must not:
- contain advertising for goods or services or try to make business use of the site
- contain anything unlawful, threatening, abusive, libellous, indecent
- mislead others about who has posted the message
- use language that offends in any way, in particular, anything that is of a racist, sexist, nationalistic, cultural or religious nature
- contain a virus or any other harmful software
Oxfordshire County Council retains the right to prevent you from accessing the interactive areas of the website if you contravene these terms.
Using the website for consultation
The information you provide as part of this consultation will / may be made available to agents who help with our research. Oxfordshire County Council is committed to open government and so may make public the responses it receives to this consultation. If you do not want all or part of your response (including your identity) to be made public, please state in the response which parts you wish us to keep confidential. Where confidentiality is not requested, responses may be made available to any enquirer, including enquirers outside the UK, or published by any means, including on the Internet.
Use of Java and/or ActiveX components
There may be pages on this site that use Java scripts or ActiveX elements to enhance their appearance or functionality. Oxfordshire County Council appreciates that because it is possible to use these add-ins to make changes to the settings on a PC some users may have disabled them in their browser, or their office network may not allow them. If this is true for you then you may find that there are pages that may not display properly, or the interactive elements will not work for you. We hope that this will not spoil your use of this site.
Cookies
What is a cookie?
- A cookie is a small text file that a website transfers to the browser on your computer's hard disk so that the site can remember who you are.
- A cookie will typically contain the name of the website from which the cookie has come, the "lifetime" of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number.
- We cannot identify you personally by using a cookie. Cookies store no personal data and are not used to gather personal information.
How does Oxfordshire County Council use cookies?
- To collect statistics about your use of our website, such as when you last visited the site. This information is used to improve the user experience on our website.
- To make our job applications system more convenient to use by maintaining your login session between screens, so you don't have to log back in continually.
- To help us embed useful maps and videos from Google Maps, YouTube and Vimeo.
- In order to deliver the best possible experience, the site needs to know if you have JavaScript enabled. Instead of querying your browser each time a page loads, a cookie is set instead.
- Monitor visitor behavioural to see how users are completing forms/transactions and improve user experience.
Enabling or disabling cookies
- We recommend that you allow all cookies set by this site as they help us provide you with a better service.
- If you decide to delete or disable our cookies then you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our website.
- Information about how to enable or disable cookies is available on the about cookies website.
- Cookies used by Oxfordshire County Council, do not infringe on your privacy or threaten your computer's security.
Cookie pop-up
You may see a cookie pop-up welcome message when you visit. We’ll store a cookie so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and knows not to show it again.
| Name | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| __popupCookie | Tracks if a user has visited the site and see the cookie pop-up message | 9999 days |
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our site. This information is used for reporting purposes and to help us improve the customer experience on our site.
Analytics uses its own cookie to track visitor interactions. The cookie is used to store information, such as what time the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before, and what site referred the visitor to the web page.
The cookies set by Google Analytics are as follows:
| Name | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| __ga | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate stats on how the visitor uses the website | 2 years |
| __gat | Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate | 1 day |
| __gid | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate stats on how the visitor uses the website | 1 day |
You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.
YouTube
We use YouTube to house our video content, which is then embedded within our site.
YouTube uses cookies. For example, to monitor the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and to monitor visitors and pages viewed. For more details please view the YouTube Privacy Policy|.
Fix My Street
Fix My Street is a service we use to allow customers to report problems on the streets and roads. Below is the list of cookies and services that this part of the site can use.
| Name | Typical Content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| fixmystreet_app_session | A unique random identifier | When the browser is closed, or four weeks if “Keep me signed in” is ticked |
Hotjar
Hotjar is a visual way to understand a user's behaviour on our website and provides customer feedback, and surveys and creates anonymous heatmaps of customer journeys. Hotjar does not track or record visitors who have cookies disabled. More information is available on the Hotjar website.
| Name | Description | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _hjUserId | This cookie is set as soon as a user loads a page which contains the Hotjar code. The cookie contains a universally unique identifier (UUID) which allows Hotjar to track the same visitor across multiple pages and sessions. | 1 year |
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | This cookie is set once a visitor interacts with a survey invitation modal popup. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not re-appear if it has already been shown. | 1 year |
| _hjDonePolls | This cookie is set once a visitor completes a poll using the feedback poll widget. It is used to ensure that the same poll does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. | 1 year |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | This cookie is set once a visitor minimises a feedback poll widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimised when the visitor navigates through your site. | 1 year |
| _hjDoneTestersWidgets | This cookie is set once visitors submit their information in the recruit user testers widget. It is used to ensure that the same form does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. | 1 year |
| _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets | This cookie is set once a visitor minimises a recruit user testers widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimised when the visitor navigates through your site. | 1 year |
| _hjIncludedInSample | This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels. | When the browser is closed |
You can opt out of Hotjar tracking by turning on the Do Not Track header in your web browser.
Customised online advertising
Facebook Pixel
We have installed tracking code on all pages of this website to help us learn more about Facebook users' interests in the site. The aim is to make sure that any advertising we create is as relevant as is reasonably possible for our audience. Facebook Pixel enables us to create 'custom audiences' within Facebook to target Facebook adverts at groups of people who have visited certain pages. It also helps us to measure how effective our Facebook adverts are. We cannot identify individual visitors to our web pages by using Facebook Pixel.
You can opt out of receiving these targeted adverts by visiting the Your Online Choices website or the Facebook advert preferences page.
Mailchimp
We use Mailchimp to send emails and alerts to people who subscribe to them. We also use Mailchimp to help us make our online advertising more relevant. Mailchimp enables us to target Facebook adverts to subscribers whose email addresses also show that they use Facebook. We also use Mailchimp to help us find people with similar interests on Facebook. We cannot identify individual Facebook users by connecting Mailchimp with Facebook and we will only do so if you opt-in when subscribing to emails.
SkyTv Adsmart
We use SkyTV AdSmart to track marketing campaigns we produce shown on TV (Sky, Virgin Media etc). These campaigns promote our web content, news items or documents. We use a tracking code on those adverts to identify the IP address of users who click on those links that lead to our website. The broadcaster may analyse the data to understand the performance of the campaign. This would only apply to data associated with their own customers, and it would be processed by them. Customers of the broadcaster will have already consented to it using and storing their data. We cannot identify individual visitors to our web pages and any data supplied is anonymous.
Availability
Our intention is to make this web service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, it is possible that on occasion it may be unavailable for very short time periods to permit maintenance or other development activity to take place.
We have set our internet service standard at 98 per cent availability. Axzona currently monitors our website availability, and you can view monthly statistics.
Privacy
Our privacy notice explains how and why information about you will be used and stored by us. An easy read version of our privacy notice (pdf format, 1.3Mb) is also available. We currently have a COVID-19 privacy notice (pdf format, 65KB) for the ongoing pandemic emergency response.