Challenging industry practices and perceptions since its creation, the NLPG is built to British Standard, BS7666. With an address, co-ordinate and unique property reference number (UPRN) assigned to every item in the gazetteer it enables any address-based, map-based or other location based dataset to be matched to it and provides a national framework for information exchange.
The gazetteer is being maintained by over 230 authorities through their LLPG's (Local Land & Property Gazetteers) while the VOA are complimenting this bottom up maintenance process by providing updates from the Council Tax and Non-domestic Ratings lists. These are available to the NLPG at monthly and daily intervals respectively.
A major development for the NLPG has been the agreement of the XML Schema meaning that data matched to the master list of addresses, with UPRNs, can be transferred between applications and organisations using XML. The schema has been adopted for the e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) for use across government.
Michael Nicholson, Managing Director of Intelligent Addressing, the national custodians of the NLPG commented, "Within local authorities real service improvements delivered through applications linked to their LLPGs are debunking the myth that this e-Government initiative doesn't have a lifespan beyond 2005. The NLPG is now being utilised to underpin Call Centres, dramatically improve planning and research, enhance standardisation of addressing information, and many other initiatives at the local level. GeoSolutions 2003 and the AGI Conference give us another platform to be able to present some of the initiatives, and discuss the implementation of the initiatives with those directly involved."
Local Government initiatives where the NLPG is - or is planned to be - utilised are LASER, the Local Authority Secure Electoral Register, NLIS (National Land Information Service), and Value Bill, with the Valuation Office Agency.
Select Emergency Services teams and areas of central government are now currently working to ensure their systems are compliant with the NLPG.
For instance the DfES (Department for Education and Skills) are committed to using the NLPG as a definitive address dataset and linking mechanism. By linking data they will be able to achieve a heightened level of knowledge management, modelling and planning: the impact of new building developments on school populations within certain catchment areas and definitive address validations with geo-coded references being examples.
So the NLPG has been created robustly, has been approved by industry experts, lays a solid BS7666 foundation for further applications to utilise, is undergoing continuous improvements and is providing enhanced service delivery across government.
For your chance to see e-Government at work, visit the National Land & Property Gazetteer Zone at GeoSolutions 2003.
For more information about GeoSolutions 2003 and to register for free entry into the event please visit www.geosolutions-expo.com.
Quelle: Directions Magazine
