Inaccurate addresses can disrupt business deliveries, emergency response times and the collection of council tax. In the past, such problems have been viewed as modest or isolated and often resolved by the local knowledge of a postman or council worker.
But as computers and technology are increasingly used, small discrepancies in an address, irrelevant to a person, can lead to problems. A national call centre dependent on a database cannot know each locality, for example. The aspirations for e-government, the introduction of electronic conveyancing, ID cards, offender tracking and a fraud free electoral system would all founder, if there was no recognisable address for each home.
The weakness of the addressing system was one of the main reasons why the population census of 2001 was so poor in some areas. A study after the census in Westminster, one of the areas most badly under-counted, showed that although the statisticians and the council recorded a similar number of addresses only three-quarters appeared on both lists.
It is no wonder that a population count based on just one inaccurate list required expensive and embarrassing revision.
Under the plans announced on Friday, the national database will be developed and operated by Ordnance Survey in partnership with local and central government, building on work already undertaken by the National Land and Property Gazetteer, Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey.
The hope is that the new register will be up and running 30 months after the work is launched, at the end of a consultation period.
Bob Barr, of Manchester University, welcomed the acknowledgement by government that such a register was required, but was concerned about the proposed structure. In particular, he thought that the creation of a "national monopoly" list to be sold on a commercial basis was flawed as many would not use it because of the expected high cost.
Tony Vickers, an independent land policy researcher, said the announcement raised "a lot of questions about who pays and who gets the benefits", adding that politicians "ought to pay great attention" to the way in which these publicly funded bodies gain from a good that ought to be free at the point of use.
Other experts said the "victory" for Ordnance Survey would be a "concern" to many.
No single body has until now had responsibility for all such spatial information. Government departments and agencies such as the Royal Mail (which looks after post codes), Ordnance Survey (mapping data), the Land Registry (the register of property title) and the Improvement and Development Agency (operating local government land gazetteers) have their own lists and often seek to maximise their revenue streams from their own (imperfect) data sets which are then made available through private sector distributors.
Autor: Simon Briscoe
Quelle: Financial Times, 27.05.2005
