19 May 2003

Land and Property, Space and Place

By Shamit Ghosh

eGov monitor Weekly provides a round-up of a handful of the 60 speaker presentations which took place at the Location 2003's London event last week.

eGovernment Trends and Issues

"The Government's best kept secret" was how Nick Chappelaz, Government Strategy Manager for ESRI (UK) described the application of GIS technologies in his keynote address to Location 2003 delegates.

While land and property data played a key role across the eGovernment agenda, GIS tended only to be used in times of crisis or for specific projects, he said. Although many public sector organisations have made great advances in this area, such as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, this was not the norm. Of particular importance was the role of spatial data in evidence-based policy and its value in supporting bids for funding in the face of increasing outside challenges for resources. Highlighting what he saw as the key eGovernment trends, Nick rejected Gartner's theory that the UK was now in a trough of disillusionment following the peak of inflated expectation, arguing that an acceleration, rather than a slow-down, in the pace of success was evident. But somewhat worryingly, authorities were progressing in delivery the e-agenda at different paces, reinforcing the need for senior management buy-in to ensure whole organisations were committed to e-delivery. Instead of the public sector maximising the value of data and business systems, there was a danger, he said, that information would be simply copied around government.

Geography - The Tool for Better Government

An independent review of the one-year pilot Pan-Government Agreement (PGA) for Ordnance Survey digital mapping products for central government has highlighted several key issues which affected its usage by public sector organisations. Senior management support and the availability of geographical information resources were found to be highly influential factors, with training and IT issues regarded as particulary important by new users. Feedback from organisations taking up the benefits of the pilot OS PGA showed that many were now using one or more of the datasets in the normal course of daily business, said Peter Capell, Head of Planning and Land Use Statistics, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Chair of the Intra-Government Group on Geographic Information (IGGI) and Central and Local Information Partnership groups, in his presentation. Trends were also identified in the usage patterns, with new users tending to use the data for internal purposes and more mature users finding opportunities for "joining-up" outside their own organisations. An overwhleming 90 per cent of new users surveyed said they planned to use OS data products to improve access to information.

Following the success of the pilot scheme, a new three-year agreement has been put in place managed by IGGI which supplies a portfolio of OS products to the whole of central government. (See this week's eGov monitor Weekly for the latest developments.)

Peter outlined a number of related developments currently underway in the ODPM, such as the 'Maps on Tap' service, which will provide a set of managed services enabling government to publish its geographic data, using GIS, to other government users and the public. The project will host multiple GI-based applications from different government organisations, and is expected to be available by late summer 2003. A 'map browser' project, which will enable users to search by post-code, local authority area, grid reference and parliamentary constituency, has reached pilot proof of concept stage, with funding being sought to enable its rollout.

Adding Value to the 2001 Census

Relaxation of licensing regulations governing the wealth of data generated by the latest 2001 Census is opening up a raft of new opportunities for both business and the public sector. Under the HMSO's 'Click-Use' license, raw material from the Census - previously only obtainable to companies via census agencies - is now free of charge to all organisations, in recognition that licensing issues and the cost of data were major inhibitors to use. "The emphasis is very much on pushing data out", Keith Dugmore, Director of Demographic Decisions, told delegates. "We will see new markets created by the new opportunities being offered." Most end-users would require analysis or executive summaries rather than data in raw form, he added, predicting that many value-added suppliers will be now "leaping into the marketplace."

Geodemographic data derived from the census has been typically exploited by the private sector to enable customer profiling, market segmenting and clustering of users according to location. Similarly public sector organisations could also harness the potential value of census data in a wide range of applications, such as in siting services according to local demand, identifying optimal locations for post offices and day centres, or determining where household refuse is generated, representing just a few of many possibilities. Key statistics for local authorities were published in February, with a number of further specialist datasets due for release in September or October.

GI Infrastructures at OS: Joined-Up from Start to Finish

Ordnance Survey has embarked on one of its most ambitious projects to date: to build a single, massive geospatial database architecture, that will support the organisation's production and publication needs. The shift to a new infrastructure, explained Berik Davies, Principal Consultant, Ordnance Survey, reflects how OS is increasingly moving towards integrated, electronic service delivery in all aspects of its operations, and looks to streamline and simplify the procedures involved in capturing, maintaining and publishing geographic information, creating "a single end-to-end process from field to map" OS Data which was historically stored, managed, edited and supplied to customers in grids of square tiles is now held as a single, seamless database, allocating each feature with an unique identifier and therefore providing the "digital framework for Great Britain", Berik said.

GI in Online Services

The Environment Agency, which spends some £50m annually on IS/IT, has invested substantially in GIS in order to be at the 'leading-edge', but not than the 'bleeding-edge', of technology. As an organisation whose business is based in geography, more of its IT systems are being developed with GIS at the centre. The Agency's David Price gave an overview of a new service providing environmental information on property searches, which may become a fundamental feature of all future property transactions, and incorporating a sophisticated search engine. A pilot service was developed last year and a live version was successfully implemented a few weeks ago. Like other speakers, David stressed that management commitment was crucial to change where projects required an organisational cultural shift. He also warned delegates to take care to manage the risk of legal challenges to their project - a reference to the Office of Fair Trading's investigation, made public last week, into the Environment Agency's suspected breach of competitiveness laws over the way it charges for the property search data.

Going Corporate - The Strategy

Leeds City Council is introducing a corporate GIS solution that will deliver multi-channel, access to geographical-based information for citizens and staff, forming part of a five-year, £4.6 million investment in spatial data developments. Communication, consultation and partnership working with supplier ESRI (UK) had been instrumental to the success so far of the project, according to Kevin Crotty, Programme Manager at the City Council, who outlined the extensive work undertaken to ensure stakeholders at all levels were fully engaged. The strategic partnership model adopted by Leeds could potentially serve as a blueprint for how other organisations could work together to implement enterprise-wide systems, delegates were told.

Crime, Disorder and Public Safety

Crime mapping and geographical analysis of data can arm police forces and their partner agencies with a powerful tool for detecting patterns in crime concentration and developing effective reduction strategies. Worcestershire County Council's Research and Intelligence Unit had developed a Joined Up Information System (JUIS), an interactive data warehouse incorporating a GIS facility and a small team of researchers for analytical support. The project has been financed by a partnership of local and regional bodies including West Mercia police, county and district councils and fire authorities, which benefit from data, specific research and intelligence to assist their community strategies, crime and disorder reduction, fire safety prevention and providing supporting evidence for funding bids.

Based on a model used by the Philadelphia Police Department, Thames Valley Police's COMPSTAT initiative uses electronic mapping to provide statistical information which underpins regular performance management meetings, during which Area Commanders discuss the findings and co-ordinate strategies to tackle local problems, such as crime 'hotspots', and prioritise where to target prime resources. Performance Analyst Sally Roberts told delegates that the project had been recently received a "positive" evaluation by the Home Office, and plans were under consideration to involve a wider range of stakeholders in the meetings.

Location 2003 will be in Telford on 20-21 May. For details see: www.location2003.com