The aim is to provide a single national database that will be maintained through a partnership approach and a collaborative framework of address and property identifiers. This will be developed and operated by Ordnance Survey in partnership with local and central government. It will build on the work already undertaken by the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey. A joint prospectus issued today and available on ODPM’s website describes the proposal in more detail and seeks comments from interested parties. The database, currently to be known as the National Spatial Address Infrastructure (NSAI), will support a wide range of services delivered by central and local government and the private sector. In government for example, the NSAI will improve the address base for the processing of benefits claims, the management and collection of local taxation, the next population census, as well as supporting the delivery of services such as police, fire and social care. For local authorities it will also complement arrangements under the new Mapping Services Agreement, released today.
Announcing the plans, Phil Woolas, the local government Minister in the ODPM, said: “I welcome the development of the infrastructure as it will support closer information exchange across national and local government, and between government and business. This will help to drive the knowledge economy as well as improve the quality and efficiency of vital public services. I’m pleased that ODPM has been able to facilitate an agreement between key stakeholders.”
The infrastructure will build on Local Land and Property Gazetteers (LLPGs), the NLPG, the National Street Gazetteer, the Postcode Address File (PAF) and Ordnance Survey AddressPoint. NSAI will draw on the expertise of stakeholders including local authorities, Royal Mail Group plc, Office for National Statistics and Valuation Office Agency.
The main partners, Ordnance Survey and IDeA, have agreed heads of terms for the development process. A first cut of the NSAI will become available eight months after the full agreement is signed, paving the way towards a final structure after 18 months. The NSAI will initially relate to England and Wales. Longer term, the plan is to include information from Scotland and Northern Ireland to create a UK-wide infrastructure. The prospectus issued today invites comments by the end of June.
Stakeholders will have a continuing input to the process via a governance process that will encourage participation at a number of different levels. This group will be chaired by a senior official at ODPM.
Lucy de Groot, Executive Director of IDeA, said "There are tremendous benefits to be shared by the local government sector from linking local property gazetteers with a nationally consistent infrastructure. This builds on the extensive work by local government in creating the Local Land and Property Gazetteers and the National Land and Property Gazetteer."
Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey’s Director General and Chief Executive, said: "The NSAI will create one definitive geographically based address infrastructure which will increase operational efficiency for both the public and private sectors by ensuring information is consistently linked to the correct addresses."
As a definitive, maintained and up-to-date spatial address database, the NSAI will aim to resolve current divergences between address lists. It will adopt BS 7666 standards and include other ‘objects’ on the landscape without postal addresses such as community halls and churches, as well as handling multi-occupancy addresses.
For central and local government organisations, the plan is to use existing agreements with Ordnance Survey as the base for obtaining the NSAI. For local authorities, the NSAI will complement arrangements under the new Mapping Services Agreement (MSA). During the MSA contract period local authorities will have the opportunity to benefit from the new infrastructure.
Other users will also be able to access the NSAI. Details will be announced at a later stage.
ODPM is making up to £2.3 million available from the local e-government programme to Surrey County Council acting as lead authority for local government to enable the transfer of the NLPG database to the NSAI and to help facilitate local government's transition from one system to the other.
Quelle: Publictechnology, 27.05.2005
