+-----------------------+| November 2007 Edition |+-----------------------+

General:

1. PSI Becomes a Focus of Attention 2. PSI Debated in Commons 3. APPSI Attacks Govt Handling of PSI 4. PSI Worth Hundreds of Billions of Pounds 5. The UK Locus Association Considers UK PSI Complaint Process 6. PSI in the Baltic States 7. Smaller Valuation Office Agency Aims to Provide Better Customer Service 8. Welcome to New Intelligent Addressing Staff 9. Calderdale Council Seeks a Senior LLPG Assistant 10. December Ezine 11. Christmas Holiday Break

NLPG:

1. DTF7.3 Migration 2. VOA Matching

NSG:

1. DfT Re-publishes the ETON Technical Specification 2. Creation and Maintenance of ASD 3. November Quarterly Submission Month 4. NSG Health Checks 5. LSG Data Entry Conventions and Best Practice for the NSG Guidance Documentation 6. Use of IDeA Local Street Gazetteer Custodians Discussions Forum 7. Motorway Data Entry 8. Type 3 Streets (A and B Roads) 9. Regional Chair Positions Vacant

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[General]**1. PSI Becomes a Focus of Attention** At the heart of IA's complaint against the Ordnance Survey, in 2006, was the objective of having fair and equitable terms for the licensing of local authorities' gazetteers (NLPG and NSG) under the re-use of Public Sector Information

(PSI) regulations. The availability of PSI, is increasingly in the news, and is now attracting political attention; the first five articles indicate the interest that is now being taken.

**2. PSI Debated in Commons** In an encouraging move indicating that the Government is beginning to take PSI seriously Mark Todd MP for South Derbyshire, won the right to raise the subject as an Adjournment debate in the House of Commons, on November 12th. Mr Todd asked the government to recognise the failed opportunity for £600m revenue (possibly £1billion per annum, according to some sources) which could be raised if public sector information was properly understood and sold. He also criticised the government for lack of leadership and ownership of the issues. He graphically illustrated this by pointing out that the government asked him which Minister he thought should answer the debate. He demanded a clear strategy with proper Government ownership and said that the OFT should be given a stronger remit to enforce its decisions on market unfairness. Mr Gareth Thomas, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, answered on behalf of the Government. He welcomed the opportunity to explore the issues and said that the Government had accepted recommendations in the OFT's recent report into the unfair and uncompetitive behaviour of some trading funds, and had accepted 13 of the 15 recommendations in the [1]Power of Information Report. He said that it was essential that there was transparency and fairness and that public sector information holders should apply exactly the same terms to all commercial users of their information, including when they were using their own information. It was unlawful to discriminate between reusers under the Reuse of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005, regardless of whether they were public or private.

Mr Todd called for a framework to ensure policy momentum to resolve the issues; there had been lengthy periods of neglect and he urged the government to take advantage of the existing potential and competitive edge. Mr Thomas said that the Government was completing research [DTI/Treasury research] into the issues and this would be released in due course; he added that he would write to Mr Todd to address a number of more general questions and give some additional comfort on the time scale.

[1] http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/power_information.pdf

**3. APPSI Attacks Govt Handling of PSI** The Government's handling of PSI is under attack from all sides as Richard Susskind, head of its own Advisory Panel on Public Sector information criticises them over a lack of strategy. In a [1]paper written in October and aimed primarily at ministers who have a direct interest in the re-use of PSI he argues that the asset of PSI will remain unjustifiably untapped or, worse, be unnecessarily squandered; he recommends that the government should address the short as well as medium term strategy (twelve months and three years respectively). Against a back drop of problems, uncertainties and disagreements he recommends that they should produce a definitive and unambiguous statement of what it intends to achieve through the encouragement of the use of PSI.

[1] http://www.appsi.gov.uk/ministers/gov-strategy-psi.pdf

**4. PSI Worth Hundreds of Billions of Pounds** The Guardian has reported Richard Susskind, chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information, thinks that the PSI could be worth hundreds of billions of pounds rather than the serious under estimate of £550 million per annum, put forward in their recent report. See full story at [1]Public sector information 'worth billions' or follow the debate

at the Guardian's free our data blog - [2]www.freeourdata.org.uk.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/15/freeourdata.news[2] http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/index.php

**5. The UK Locus Association Considers UK PSI Complaint Process** The UK LOCUS Association in association with Dorsey & Whitney held an open meeting titled: Complaints and Redress in the PSI Marketplace: The Process and How it Works in London on the evening of the 22nd November 2007. The objective of the meeting was to consider and discuss the key issues surrounding the complaints procedure in the Public Sector Information Marketplace. A report of the meeting can be seen on the [1]http://www.epsiplus.net/news/learn_adapt.

[1] http://www.epsiplus.net/news/learn_adapt

**6. PSI in the Baltic States** Interesting feedback from the recent PSI meeting held in Latvia, at which 23 countries and the EC were present. The first observation is how the Baltic States are progressing with optimising the reuse of PSI seemingly free of the historic and PSIH imposed constraints in GB. Secondly there was bemusement and then astonishment that we've achieved what most of them haven't even contemplated, which is the creation and maintenance of nationally consistent dataset from local authorities (376 LLPGs/172LSGs). The astonishment is that further use of these definitive datasets is constrained by the licensing and pricing terms of the PSIH, which has developed competing products using secondary sources of information rather than reusing local government's data as the primary source!

**7. Smaller Valuation Office Agency Aims to Provide Better Customer Service** The Valuation Office Agency announced on November 19th 2007 a series of measures to improve its service to customers and take account of an expected reduction in the level of government funding. The plans include more centralisation of routine processing functions; better management of data; a reduction in

the space the Agency occupies through digitisation of records; and, the introduction of more flexible ways of working for staff supported by enhanced technology. As part of this package of working more efficiently in the future, the Agency is currently consulting with its staff on proposals to close offices in Chester, Durham, Harrogate, Kidderminster, Newport and Stockport. In addition, following consultation, it proposes to move out of its head office in Carey Street, central London. Customers are migrating to different channels of communication - customer use of telephone, email and the Agency's website is becoming more common. And where face-to-face contact is needed, the Agency's staff usually meet at people's own properties. Coupled with the development of technology to allow staff to work from or at home, rather than being mainly office-based, means that service to the customer can be maintained right across the country from fewer sites. This also helps reduce travelling and subsistence costs and the Agency's carbon footprint. The VOA is making it easier for customers to contact them through a range of channels, and are minimising the burden on taxpayers and ratepayers to provide data, by obtaining information from other sources wherever possible. As a result of the changes and adopting new ways of working, the Agency believes its customers will see a continuation of improvements in the service it provides.

**8. Welcome to New Intelligent Addressing Staff** During October and November, we welcomed two new people to our team: Rosie Partington (left), Deputy Team Leader / Support Manager - Responsible for the NLPG helpdesk, providing support for the NLPG and NSG and is part of the BLPU Polygon Technical Working Party. Rosie previously worked as GIS Officer/LLPG Custodian/Authority Liaison Officer within the Organisational Development Unit at North East Derbyshire District Council responsible for their LLPG and GIS data.

Her email is [1]rpartington@intelligent-addressing.co.uk. Chris Jongkind (right), Gazetteer Technician - responsible for NLPG Hub updates. Chris was previously a town planning technician at a large planning consultancy in Toronto, Canada, working with various mapping, GIS, and junior policy planning tasks. Chris has a BA Geography from the University of Western Ontario, a college diploma in Urban Planning, and a college diploma in GIS/Cartographic Specialty. Between college and work, he taught English in Japan. His email is [2]cjongkind@intelligent-addressing.co.uk.

[1] mailto:rpartington@intelligent-addressing.co.uk[2] mailto:cjongkind@intelligent-addressing.co.uk

**9. Calderdale Council Seeks a Senior LLPG Assistant** Calderdale�s Local Land and Property Gazetteer Manager is now seeking to appoint a suitably experienced person to assist him with the day-to-day management and development of its LLPG. The Senior LLPG Assistant will also assist in the development and promotion of the use of spatial data within the local gazetteer in order to improve the locational accuracy of address data across all services. An understanding and experience of GIS and spatial data would therefore be a distinct advantage although specialist training will be provided if required. Salary Scale 6 £21,412 - £22,845 per annum (Job evaluation pending). For an informal discussion about the post (Ref: RD4.304) please contact David Woodcock, LLPG Manager on (01422) 392129 or David Bradshaw, ICT Manager on (01422) 392337. Application forms and further details should be available from the council website [1]http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/employment/vacancies/jobs-index.html by 5th December 2007. The closing date for applications is Friday, the 21st December 2007, and it is anticipated that interviews will be held in the week commencing the 14th of January 2008.

[1] http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/employment/vacancies/jobs-index.html

**10. December Ezine** This will be published on Thursday 20th December. Copy deadline for notification of job vacancies should be with IA before 12.00hrs on Friday 14th December.

**11. Christmas Holiday Break** IA offices will close at midday on Monday 24th December and will reopen on December 27th & 28th between 09.30hrs and 17.00hrs. On Monday 31st the office will be open between 09.30hrs and 12.00hrs and will then be manned from January 2nd as normal.

[NLPG]**1. DTF7.3 Migration** At the time of going to press 124 authorities had successfully completed the migration to DTF7.3 and another 89 were in the process of migrating their LLPG data to the new standard. IA is now receiving data from Aligned Assets, CADLine, Caps (now called IDOX), GGP, Innogistic, Northgate and Plantech users as well as some authorities operating in-house systems. On average it is currently taking 3.2 attempts to produce a full, error free DTF7.3 file suitable for migration and quick turn around times for corrections are imperative; authorities should therefore not delay in sending data to the hub. Those authorities that have corrected all the errors in the "health checks" distributed at the beginning of the year will find the process of migration quicker; those that have not addressed these issues are facing more problems in getting through the process. To date IA have processed over 600 attempts.

**2. VOA Matching** Almost 50% of authorities have achieved a 99% or better Ctax match in what has been another extremely good response to the files posted on the website - over 23 million records have now been matched successfully. 316 authorities have a match rate of

above 95% with 185 of these achieving over 99%; congratulations should go to the London Boroughs as the first Region to achieve a 95% and above match - the majority of these being over 99%. Likewise NDR has breached the 1 million mark with approximately 100,000 "possible" matches requiring further investigation or confirmation. If these "possibles" were resolved satisfactorily, it would take the overall NDR match rate to above 60%. 14 authorities are already at 95% or better. In all IA received 117 files for processing during the month. As IA will be undertaking a complete resynch with VOA data at the end of December it was decided to issue the next set of figures after that work was done. IA will accept any matches against November 5th release up until Friday 14th December, and these will be included in the resynchronization exercise. In the meantime all resources are being directed towards the migration to DTF7.3 in anticipation of servicing the needs of receiving authorities in the New Year.

[NSG]**1. DfT Re-publishes the ETON Technical Specification** The long anticipated Code of Practice for the Coordination and Street Works and the Technical Specification for EToN were finalised by DfT on 30th October 2007 and have been made available for download via the DfT website under the following links: [1]www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/local/streetworks/cop/pdfcoordstreetworksv5 [2] www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/local/streetworks/cop/pdfelectronictransnotices The new legislation places increased responsibility on street authorities for the coordination of street works, particularly with respect to some new Associated Street data (ASD) and Operational District (OD) coding and file

structures. Much of this coordination work is facilitated by the Local Street Gazetteer maintained by an authority's LSG Custodian and the use of the NSG for the street works coordination of EToN which all require to be in place by 1st April 2008.

[1] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/local/streetworks/cop/pdfcoordstreetworksv5[2] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/local/streetworks/cop/pdfelectronictransnotices

**2. Creation and Maintenance of ASD** There are still a number of authorities that are not creating or updating their ASD and in particular type 22 and 23 records. Once again as of 1st April 2008 the new DfT Code of Practice places a more robust requirement on all Highway Authorities to accurately maintain their reinstatement designations and special designations with extra emphasis placed on the following: Traffic Sensitive Streets Protected Streets Special Engineering Difficulties (SEDs) There are still several months before the new legislation comes in force. It is therefore, very important that Highway Authorities spend some time reviewing all their ASD, improving the quality of this vital information and including it in all future LSG submissions to the NSG Custodian. Without a full set of designations Highway Authorities will effectively not be able to conduct their network management and coordination duties. November Quarterly Submission Month At the time of publication all 172 updated LSG extracts had been received by the hub. 159 custodians managed to submit their gazetteer within the first 2 weeks of November surpassing the latest statutory update and making it the fastest update ever. This is a fantastic achievement by all involved and makes the process of ASD creation by other street authorities much easier. The NSG is due to be published on time on-line on 14th December 2007. The NSG Custodian would once again like to thank all LSG Custodians that

contributed to another full update of the NSG during November. Once again this is a fantastic achievement. We now have 171 gazetteers at Level 3; the only remaining Level 1 gazetteer is the Isles of Scilly.

**3. November Quarterly Submission Month** At the time of publication all 172 updated LSG extracts had been received by the hub. 159 custodians managed to submit their gazetteer within the first 2 weeks of November surpassing the latest statutory update and making it the fastest update ever. This is a fantastic achievement by all involved and makes the process of ASD creation by other street authorities much easier. The NSG is due to be published on time on-line on 14th December 2007. The NSG Custodian would once again like to thank all LSG Custodians that contributed to another full update of the NSG during November. Once again this is a fantastic achievement. We now have 171 gazetteers at Level 3; the only remaining Level 1 gazetteer is the Isles of Scilly.

**4. NSG Health Checks** IA would like to thank the LSG Custodians for their enthusiastic response to the recently published NSG health check and the accompanying comparison checks between NSG and NLPG data. All comments and feedback have been gratefully received and a small number of changes will be made to the health check in response. The new version and accompanying documentation will be released in mid-December following the November submission period and will be available for download from [1]www.thensg.org.uk.

[1] http://www.thensg.org.uk

**5. LSG Data Entry Conventions and Best Practice for the NSG Guidance Documentation** In January 2007 IDeA formed a technical working party with a remit of producing

a data entry conventions and best practice guidance document for use by LSG Custodians and all end users. Issue of this document was unfortunately delayed due to the late publication of the DfT Code of Practice and Technical Specification for EToN. However, we wish to inform you that the document has now been aligned to the current DfT documentation by members of the working group, ratified by the Regional Chairs LSG Custodians group and is now available for download from [1]www.thensg.org.uk within the FAQs section.

[1] http://www.thensg.org.uk

**6. Use of IDeA Local Street Gazetteer Custodians Discussions Forum** The Regional Chairs LSG Custodians group agreed to encourage discussion of any issues concerning the NSG/LSG to be undertaken on the above forum. Access to the forum is provided to all LSG Custodians and the NSG Service Provider on any specific technical matters. Where these matters cannot be resolved they would then be referred to the Regional Chairs LSG Custodians group for resolution. If you are an LSG Custodian and do not currently have access to this forum please contact LGIH on [1]msa@idea.gov.uk.

[1] mailto:msa@idea.gov.uk

**7. Motorway Data Entry** The NSG Custodian recently conducted an analysis of the content of motorway records within the NSG. On the whole the motorway network is well represented within the NSG. There are, however, a number of authorities that are still not following or completing the data entry convention for motorways see Annex - available for download from [1]www.thensg.org.uk. Please ensure that your Authority conducts a full review of these records within your LSG as soon as possible to ensure you are complying with the appropriate convention.

[1] http://www.thensg.org.uk

**8. Type 3 Streets (A and B Roads)** As many of you will know from Regional presentations around the

country both existing users and the national FiReControl project and the Police Service are starting to use the NSG for emergency planning and response. One area of the NSG that requires improvement based on their feedback is the entry of type 3 streets for numbered or classified routes, namely A and B roads. For this reason the Regional Chairs together with the NSG Custodian are mandating a data entry exercise of all A and B roads throughout England and Wales. Each A and B road must be cross referenced to the appropriate ESU for the route within an LSG. This exercise may be time consuming and LSG Custodians may wish to plan and complete this work over a number of months prior to October 2008. Details of the consistency of A and B roads will be provided in the monthly publication report to your authority.

**9. Regional Chair Positions Vacant** Deputy Regional Chair positions are still vacant in North East and West Midlands. If you are interested in taking up a post please contact [1]msa@idea.gov.uk.

[1] mailto:msa@idea.gov.uk

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