“Public – private collaboration in the compilation of asset registers”

Tony Black

Operations Director

Intelligent Addressing Ltd

REGNO 2007 Conference

ePSIplus Thematic Meeting:Information Management, Standards and Data Quality

Mon 26 November 2007

• what other users would like

• what the problems are

• how one of them has been resolved

• how the private sector is helping

• the metadata for the datasets

• lessons for the future

• might the approach work for other datasets

Agenda

• local authorities maintain many datasets to support the range of services they provide to citizens

• others would like access to the data to build other applications

• this is re-use of PSI

What others would like

What the problems are

• many authorities have invested heavily in digitising their data and keeping it up to date

• however, it is frequently in different specifications and formats

• few authorities have created metadata and made it available publicly ie GIgateway

• the data is to different quality standards and levels of update

• as a consequence the reuse of local government data is not being maximised

How one of them has been resolved

• many studies have shown that the three key datasets to support local authority services are:– Gazetteer of people– Gazetteer of addresses – Gazetteer of organisations

• as local authorities are the source of street name and property number information it was decided to start with the gazetteer of addresses and its twin, the gazetteer of streets

The address and street gazetteers

• the address gazetteer is the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) with all the addresses for England and Wales

• the street gazetteer is the National Street Gazetteer (NSG) and contains all the streets in England and Wales

• both are compiled to a British Standard – BS7666 Parts 1 and 2

• both are supported by Conventions Documents and transfer formats in CSV and XML

Local authority activity• the local authorities are responsible for compiling their

gazetteers, resolving errors and maintaining them – local LPGs and local LSGs

• there are 376 LLPGs and 172 LSGs• they are maintained according to a three way agreement

between a central contracting body for local government (LG Information House), each of the authorities and a private sector service provider – Intelligent Addressing Ltd

• under the agreement the authorities can be charged if they do not comply with their undertakings

• we will shortly be receiving 376 LLPG update files daily. 172 LSG update files are currently received every three months

The role of the private sector

• local government in England and Wales has no central Information Management facility

• Intelligent Addressing Ltd, IA, a small specialist company, was awarded the contract to provide hubs for the two gazetteers

• IA has compiled the hubs to comply with the standard and conventions

• IA processes the update files and provides feedback reports to the authorities, with accompanying files of records to be reviewed/resolved by the authorities if necessary

The role of the private sector (continued)

• IA makes available the datasets to other, Receving Authorities, under the Mapping Services Agreement

• IA will make the gazetteer data available for either the national datasets or subsets of them to other organisations, such as the utilities, central government and location based services once the licensing issues have been resolved

• the licensing issues have still not been resolved after 8 years

• local government and IA are looking for fair and equitable licensing terms and reasonable pricing for the data from Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail that has been incorporated (re-use of PSI) in the gazetteers – but that’s another story!!!

NLPG 1

NLPG 2

NLPG 3

NSG 1

NSG 2

NSG 3

• However, the metadata is of limited value if the data cannot be accessed and licensed for use by others…..

Lessons for the future• even with no funds from central government….• even with no direction from central government (statute or

regulation)….• it is still possible for local government to produce nationally

consistent datasets• that nationally consistent data is beneficial for all • local tailoring/attribution can be added to local systems• it produces data of the highest quality if, in information management

terms, the data is collected at its source, rather than from secondary sources, which is the consequence if local government’s data isn’t reused

• that many organisations will want and use local government’s data if it is nationally consistent and preferably available from one source

• licensing issues must be resolved to the satisfaction and benefit of all parties

Might the approach work for other datasets?

• confident that it can for key local authority application datasets where others need national consistency ie the Value Office Agency and the Electoral Commission

• the gazetteer model can be extended to add in entities that local authorities themselves do not provide services to i.e. emergency services and utilities

• the gazetteer model can be extended to add attributes for the entities in the datasets i.e. classifications

• apart from the direct benefits of the gazetteers it is anticipated that the model will give local government the proof of the benefits and that other datasets will be tackled in the same way, along with the accompanying metadata.

Demonstration/Questions?

the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) – the list of addresses for England and Wales:

www.nlpg.org.ukthe National Street Gazetteer (NSG) – the list of

streets in England and Wales: www.thensg.org.uk

Tony Blackablack@intelligent-addressing.co.uk

(0044)207 747 3505