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| September 2008 Edition |

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General:

1. Underpinning Transformational Government Conference -

Everything Happens Somewhere
2. 2008 Exemplar Awards
3. CORE Cleaning
4. Public Sector Information Unlocking Service
5. AGI Response to the European PSI Directive Consultation
6. Land Data to Quiz Local Authorities
7. Show Us A Better Way Competition to Close
8. London Crime Maps Officially Launched
9. IA Recruits New KPI Manager

NLPG:

1. Exemplar Awards
2. VOA Matching
3. LLPG Data Entry Conventions
4. FTP Password Change
5. NLPG NSG Comparison Reports

NSG:

1. NSG Submissions
2. New Documentation
3. Exemplar Awards
4. Regional Meetings

-----[articles]-----

[General]
**1. Underpinning Transformational Government Conference -
Everything Happens Somewhere**
The annual NLPG NSG conference is THE place to be on October
16th, with over 230
delegates registered already, the day promises to be a lively
event with local government
professionals listening and participating with key speakers such
as Glynn Evans,
Assistant to the Chief Executive on Business Transformation,
Birmingham City Council,
John Hayes, Director at IDeA and Jos Creese, Head of IT,
Hampshire County Council.
 See [1]here for the full agenda for the day. As well as
presentations, there will
be plenty of opportunities to mix with the suppliers who are
exhibiting at the event
and participate in the social sessions. See [2]www.nlpg.org.uk
for details.

[1] http://www.iahub.net/docs/1216913806845.pdf
[2] http://www.nlpg.org.uk/nlpg/link.htm?id=2022

**2. 2008 Exemplar Awards**

With 48 submissions, we have had a record breaking number of
entries for this year's
NLPG NSG Exemplar Awards. The Awards will be presented at the
Underpinning Transformational
Government conference. If you have entered, make sure you
[1]register to attend,
you might be a winner!

[1] http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?
sm=9ziRjNjA_2b58oO7ZqcC5gRw_3d_3d

**3. CORE Cleaning**

Work by the IA Special Projects Team on allocating UPRNs to
Electoral Registration
data continues. As at September 25th a total of 58 authorities
are working with
IA with 52 in receipt of their match reports. Some 4.5m records
have been processed
with an average match to the NLPG of 96.7%.

**4. Public Sector Information Unlocking Service**

OPSI is beta testing a new [1]PSI Unlocking Service for people
who encounter difficulty
getting the information they need in the formats they want. Such
difficulties can
include issues with charging, licensing or the data standards
that public sector
information is provided in.

These issues are not about access, but all the other pitfalls
which can occur when
you want to do something with public sector information - copy
it, remix it with
other data or add value and republish it.

"If you are trying to re-use some public sector information, but
the data you need
is locked-up, this service is for you," says OPSI.

[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/unlocking-service/
**5. AGI Response to the European PSI Directive Consultation**
The AGI has published its response to a number of questions
posed by the European
Commission, Information Society and Media DG, Access to
Information Unit, for the
purposes of a review of the Directive on re-use of Public Sector
Information.

See [1]AGI for a copy of the response.

[1]
http://www.agi.org.uk/SITE/UPLOAD/DOCUMENT/Policy/ECPSIRespnse.pdf

**6. Land Data to Quiz Local Authorities**

[1]Land Data cic, has been commissioned by Communities and Local
Government (CLG)
to conduct a survey of all Local Authority Local Land Charges
Departments across
England and Wales, to establish their "state of readiness" with
regard to Government's
access guidelines issued in January this year. The guidelines
seek to deliver open
access to local authority held property information.

Land Data's survey will cover the five or six departments where
the relevant data
is held within each of the 410 Local Authorities. The survey
will identify current
access procedures, any access constraints, the current data
format (electronic or
paper) and any planned moves to electronic delivery.

The work is being undertaken over a four month period. The

completed work will highlight
those Local Authorities already able to work within the
guidelines and those in
the process of creating new access routes. This work will inform
CLG's ongoing reforms
of the property searches market.

[1] http://www.land-data.org.uk/

**7. Show Us A Better Way Competition to Close**

The [1]Show Us a Better Way competition closes on September
30th, and judging will
begin - there are already hundreds of entries with innovative
ways to use government-collected
datasets, demonstrating the value that can be generated from
them.

The Guardian's [2]www.freeourdata.org.uk is looking for any

ideas for how the competition
could use crowd sourcing (or voting) to pass on to the judging
panel, to make their
life easier.

[1] http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/
[2] http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/index.php

**8. London Crime Maps Officially Launched**

A new website enabling Londoners to get crime figures for their
neighbourhood was
launched at the beginning of September by Mayor of London, Boris
Johnson and Deputy
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson.

The new 'crime mapping' website means that, for the first time,
Londoners will be
able to get information about crime levels in their
neighbourhoods and access local
crime prevention and safety advice.

The [1]website provides a set of interactive maps, showing

numbers and rates of
crime, and links to other sites including Safer Neighbourhoods
Team web pages. The
site also compares the crime levels in local neighbourhoods to
the London average.

The new site went live on September 3rd after a brief trial and
testing period in
August where feedback from the public informed the consultation
process. Further
crime categories will be added in a phased approach.

[1] http://maps.met.police.uk/

**9. IA Recruits New KPI Manager**

Intelligent Addressing has appointed Darren Chapman to monitor
Key Performance Indicators
(KPI) and produce the Business Analysis reports for the MSA
contract. Darren was
previously working at RB Kensington and Chelsea where he was the
Contract Monitoring
Officer (Parking Operations).

He has a degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies, has been

a hotel manager
and worked for City of Westminster before moving to RBK&C.

[NLPG]
**1. Exemplar Awards**
Thank you to all of you that submitted an entry for the NLPG
Exemplar Awards, they
have made for good reading and show how Local Land and Property
Gazetteers are making
differences in the delivery of services to citizens and are
making demonstrable
efficiencies internally. We look forward to seeing many of you
at the Exemplar Awards
on October 16th. There is still time to [1]register if you
haven’t already done
so.

[1] http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?
sm=9ziRjNjA_2b58oO7ZqcC5gRw_3d_3d

**2. VOA Matching**

IA has received the latest full extract from the VOA and the
unmatched records,
using this new supply will be sent to Authorities at the
beginning of October.
There are an additional 138,000 new records in the supply and
this takes into account
the "historic" records which have been removed. The overall
match rate has increased
but the percentage match has reduced due to changes of UARNs
supplied.

This is to be expected. However, to overcome new mismatches in

the future IA would
advise authorities to ensure that all new addresses being sent
by district valuers
to the VOA should have UPRNs attached (as shown in the model
sent to authorities
recently.)

**3. LLPG Data Entry Conventions**

The Data Entry Conventions Working Group is nearing the end of
its review of the
current 'LLPG and SN&N Data Entry Conventions and Best Practice
for the NLPG' document.

A major part of the group's work has been the review of the BLPU
Classifications
Scheme; these have been revised taking on board the comments of
the Regional Chairs.
The updated Classifications will be made available via the NLPG
website as soon
as they have been signed off.

All aspects of the current document have been reviewed and where
necessary revised.
The group has only one meeting remaining and aims to complete
the work by mid October
 for consultation.

**4. FTP Password Change**

As a requirement of the MSA, FTP passwords were changed on
September 12th. If you
are experiencing problems accessing the FTP site to download
your latest health
check or VOA report then you should also check whether you are
using the correct
password.

Alternatively if you have submitted COU files since this date,

but have not yet
received a 'received' confirmation email from the hub then
again, please do check
that you are using the correct password.

If you would like to check this please send an email to the

[1]helpdesk@intelligent-addressing.co.uk
or call us on 020 7747 3502.

[1] mailto:helpdesk@intelligent-addressing.co.uk

**5. NLPG NSG Comparison Reports**

A Comparison Report is now available that details differences
between street records
in the NLPG and the NSG.

Checks include the following:

NSG street record does not match NLPG hub record on coordinates
NSG street record does not match NLPG record on street name
NLPG street records that do not exist in the NSG
NSG street records that do not exist in the NLPG
Different USRN with same street, locality, town, and authority
code
USRNs which are closed in the NLPG and live in the NSG
USRNs which are closed in the NSG and live in the NLPG

These reports are available upon request. Please contact

[1]helpdesk@intelligent-addressing.co.uk
for more information or call us on 020 7747 3502.

[1] mailto:helpdesk@intelligent-addressing.co.uk

[NSG]
**1. NSG Submissions**
Thank you to all of you that managed to make a successful
submission for the September
publication of the NSG. In total there were 109 successful
submissions, and we have
 already hit that target for the October publication. For those
of you that have
not submitted for a while and not informed us of a reason, you
will be contacted
by Baz Lokat over the next couple of weeks. He will be happy to
advise on any LSG
related issues you are facing.

**2. New Documentation**

New Documentation will be made available in the Resources
section of the [1]The
NSG from October 1st. This will include a new revised
'Compliance Check Specification'
document in line with the changes to EToN 5.0; a new improved
'How to upload and
Validate Files' document and a new 'Health Check' document.
Please take time to
have a look through the documentation, it will help!

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

**3. Exemplar Awards**

A "thank you" to all of you that submitted an entry for the NSG
Exemplar Awards,
they have made for good reading and show how Local Street
Gazetteers are making
differences in the delivery of services to citizens and are
making demonstrable
efficiencies internally. We look forward to seeing many of you
at the Exemplar Awards
on the October 16th. There is still time to register if you
haven’t already done
so and there is a link on the homepage of the [1]The NSG

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

**4. Regional Meetings**

In conjunction with the Regional Chairs, all but 2 regional
meetings have been organised
in November. Dates, Venues and times will be sent through to you
from your Regional
Chair. If you are a West Midlands Authority and would like to
benefit from the information
supplied in the Regional Meetings, please call, Baz Lokat, the
NSG Coordinator on
020 7747 3500 or email [1]Baz Lokat.

[1] mailto:alokat@thensg.org.uk