A dispute over access to mapping data is preventing central government and local authorities in England and Wales from gaining full benefit from a unified national address database.
The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) is a single record of 30 million business and residential addresses in England and Wales, compiled from council databases.
But a dispute over the use of Ordnance Survey (OS) data is holding back progress.
The Improvement and Development Agency (Idea), which has been involved in creating the NLPG, says complicated OS licensing rules about providing map data to third parties are preventing the system from being used effectively.
The lack of map information would mean that the system is of limited value to users in government, says Steve Brandwood, geographic information manager at Idea.
‘One of the key issues is that we cannot make the NLPG mapping function available to central government,’ he said. ‘It could be used to support the 2011 Census and a range of central government initiatives.’
A recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research says the NLPG could save the 376 participating local authorities £54.4m per year.
A spokesman for the OS says it is trying to enforce a fair system for customers, and altering the terms of its licence for one user of its map data would show bias.
‘We are required to operate under the rules of Crown copyright, and to create a level playing field for all our partners,’ said the spokesman. ‘We would be undermining their interests if we gave in on this matter.’
The dispute is, essentially, a conflict between the OS’s need to guard information it is using to meet Treasury finance targets, and the requirements of other government agencies, says Tim Musgrave, consultant at local authority user group Socitm.
‘The OS is tasked by government with being a self-sufficient revenue generator. But the question is, are they going so far in doing so that they are damaging the efforts of others?’ he said.
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