GeoPlace has announced the winners of this year’s Data Quality and Improvement Awards. Croydon Council has been awarded Platinum Status for excellence for the management of its Local Land and Property Gazetteer and Local Street Gazetteer.
The Platinum Awards for Address and Street Data Management were presented on 21st May at the GeoPlace annual conference, which was attended by over 400 data management specialists. The Awards are only given to authorities who have maintained the highest level of quality over the past year, measured by returns to GeoPlace.
The Address data, maintained by Stuart Henderson-Smith’s team, is fundamental to every local authority service, enabling the identification and improvement of services and outcomes for people and businesses. This data acts as a ‘golden thread’ that efficiently links and connects various processes and systems and acknowledged by the Local Government Association as “key to almost everything that’s delivered or achieved by councils”.
Mark Smith is the Local Street Custodian who maintains the central database for street information within Croydon. This data underpins the ability of each authority to coordinate activities on the highways network, minimising disruption and coordinating streetworks. Highway authorities use the data to meet their statutory requirements, managing and providing appropriate streetworks notifications. The data is also essential for utility providers – helping them to work efficiently with contractors all accessing the same, authoritative, single source of data.
The awards highlight the vital role of Address and Street Custodians across England and Wales in collecting and curating this data. Their work promotes better data management across authorities, demonstrating the skill and commitment required to maintain high standards in ever-changing datasets.
Presenting the award to Stuart Henderson-Smith, Croydon’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer Custodian and Mark Smith, Croydon’s Local Street Custodian, Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace, said: “Croydon Council has set an example that we want to recognise on a national stage. Managing both address and street data to this level takes skill, commitment and dedication to constant improvement and data quality. The resulting data delivers numerous benefits both locally and nationally, alleviating congestion and minimising disruption caused by street and road works and improving air quality. Everything that local government does happens somewhere, this precise location information is essential for councils to deliver services to the residents they serve.”
Notes:
GeoPlace’s Exemplar Awards
The Exemplar Awards highlight Custodians' roles within their authorities and enable their work to be more widely promoted to all parts of the authority. They allow the many services that use address and street data to see the high standard of the data is externally recognised. From radical transformation initiatives saving millions of pounds for local authorities, to smaller projects improving data management by using the local address and street gazetteers in innovative ways, almost every aspect of local government business is underpinned by high quality address and street data.
GeoPlace's awards highlight the Street and Addressing Custodians' work helping to curate and maintain that data. Promoting their work helps to highlight the importance of their role, and the potential for this data to deliver ever-more efficient and effective services for their communities.
About GeoPlace
GeoPlace LLP is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Ordnance Survey.
GeoPlace is a world class expert in address and street information management, working internationally as well as in the UK to help our partners and customers maximise the value of their spatial information for better decision making.
GeoPlace maintains a national infrastructure that supports the address and street information needs of the public and private sectors. Its work relies heavily on close working relationships with every local authority in England and Wales. This relationship has been developed over 15 years, to build the National Address Gazetteer infrastructure and National Street Gazetteer. Ordnance Survey develops the range of AddressBase products from the National Address Gazetteer and OS MasterMap Highways Network from the NSG. Both datasets underpin efficient and effective services, bringing direct service delivery benefits to users.
The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) and the Unique Street Reference Number (USRN) are the unique identifiers for every addressable location and street in Great Britain. They are created by local authorities who have the statutory authority to name and number every street and property and Ordnance Survey who identify objects on the landscape which may otherwise not attract an address.
These unique reference numbers link datasets together and share information with other organisations who also use them. They provide a comprehensive, complete and consistent identifier throughout a property's life cycle â from planning permission or street naming through to demolition.
