Sharing knowledge, raising awareness - Newport City Council

The recipient of this Award was nominated by custodians and judged by the NLPG Custodian and the NSG Custodian. It aims to reward continuous commitment to the LLPG and the LSG communities. The nomination was made on behalf of, and supported by, all 22 LLPG Custodians in Wales.

Shaun Powell from Newport City Council has been, and continues to be, wholly committed to the development of LLPGs as the key property dataset for public services. He has taken a lead role in the Welsh Government project and has been instrumental in persuading the Welsh Government to invest over £500k in the LLPG Project in Wales over the last two years.

Shaun has completely transformed the way that the LLPGs have been perceived by senior management across the Welsh public service, and has achieved agreement that the NLPG will be the key property dataset for Welsh public services from all authority CEOs, Police Chief Constables, Chief Fire Officers, the CEO of the Welsh Ambulance Trust, and senior civil servants, including the Chief Information Officer.

Recently, both Gwent Police and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service linked their systems to the NLPG, with the other Blue Light services committed to do the same over the next twelve months.

Shaun’s enthusiasm is phenomenal and he is an excellent mentor to other custodians who are happy to recognise his help in raising the standard and profile of their LLPGs. Shaun spends a considerable amount of his personal time ringing other Custodians, providing advice and encouragement in raising the standard of Wales’s LLPGs and in making Wales the top performing Region. This personal commitment to assisting others has resulted in Wales improving from having no Gold or Silver status authorities and nine authorities Below National Standard, in August 2009, to Wales now having 4 Gold, 11 Silver and no authorities Below National Standard. Wales has also improved from being 10th in the council tax and 10th in the non-domestic rates Regional listings, to being 8th and 4th respectively. In terms of council tax, only 0.3% separates Wales from Regional listing’s leaders, Yorkshire and Humberside.

Shaun personally negotiated a financial package between suppliers and the Welsh Government that allowed Welsh authorities to integrate their LLPG with their council tax and NDR systems. This integration considerably improved the quality of the LLPGs and provided additional revenues of over £1.5m to Welsh authorities over the next five years.

Shaun instigated the ‘Peer Review Programme’ in Wales. This programme involves three or four Custodians visiting other authorities with a view to sharing knowledge and identifying best practice that can be shared. This approach has recently been further enhanced so that both LLPG and LSG custodians undertake joint visits to share this learning more widely