In some circumstances, it can currently take up to 4.5 months to conduct an initial assessment for some complaints, particularly if they are complex. We are doing everything we can to reduce this time. You can find average timescales for each stage of complaint handling across all types of complaints here.

Home
Text size
Contrast
Menu

The ESC uses cookies to gather information about how you use our website and to help us improve its performance. They are also used to improve your experience when using our website by delivering pages more quickly or remembering user settings. The information we collect is anonymous – it cannot be used to identify you personally.

Cookies are small text files that the ESC website puts on your device. They help this website work.

Cookies collect information how you use this site so we can make sure it meets your needs. They do not collect information that could be used to identify you personally.

Cookies store information on the device you’re using. Sometimes this information is essential if you want to use a website’s functions. For example, if you need to log in, a cookie will allow the website to recognise your log-in details.

Cookies can also be used to build a profile of your activity on a website. This includes which pages you visit and how long you spend on each page.

A website may use this information to tailor the pages you see on future visits.

All recent versions of popular browsers, such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, allow you to control cookies. You can set your browser to:

  • accept all cookies
  • reject all cookies
  • accept or reject only certain cookies

For example, you might be happy to accept a cookie that allows you to log in to a website, but want to reject ones which are used to build a profile of how you use the internet.

You should also be able to set your browser to prompt you each time a cookie is offered.

Visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website to find out how to control or delete cookies.

We use cookies for two reasons:

  • to improve your experience on the website. This might include making it quicker and easier for you to find what you need, or remembering your settings.
  • to collect information about how you use our website through Google Analytics (GA). GA is a tool that produces detailed statistics about website activity. It allows us to see where the website can better meet our users’ needs.
Cookie nameClassification / Type / Session or PersistentExpiry timeDescription
HACIVIC2Essential
Functional
Session		On browser closeHACIVIC2 is a session cookie injected in the website from our infrastructure in order for load balancer to be able keep track of the application server that currently serves the website.

It is an essential cookie to the operation of the site that is always set by the load balancer and does not store any personal information.
CookieControlNon-essential
Functional
Persistent		90 daysThis cookie is set by the Cookie Control and is used to remember a user’s choice of cookies on the website.
colourContrastNon-essential
Functional
Persistent		1 yearThis cookie is set by the accessibility toolbar and is used to remember user’s choice of colour contrast.
fontSizeNon-essential
Functional
Persistent		1 yearThis cookie is set by the accessibility toolbar and is used to remember user’s choice of text font size.
_gaNon-essential
Tracking / Google Analytics
Persistent		2 yearsGoogle Analytics used to monitor traffic levels, search queries and visits to this website.

Google Analytics stores IP address anonymously on its servers in the US, and Google does not associate your IP address with any personally identifiable information. These cookies enable Google to determine whether you are a return visitor to the site, and to track the pages that you visit during your session. These cookies are set only after the user has given consent to us to use cookies.

This cookie is used for Google Analytics to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier.
_gidNon-essential
Tracking / Google Analytics
Persistent		1 dayThis cookie is used for Google Analytics to store and update a unique value for each page visited.
_gatNon-essential
Tracking / Google Analytics
Session		1 minuteThis cookie is used for Google Analytics to throttle request rate.
vuidNon-essential
Analytics / .vimeo.com (3rd party)
Persistent		2 yearsVimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos to the website.
playerNon-
Analytics / .vimeo.com (3rd party)
Persistent		1 yearThis cookie saves your settings before you play an embedded Vimeo video. This means that the next time you watch a Vimeo video, you will get your preferred settings back.