WIREDGOV

Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham hosts this year’s GeoPlace’s conference. Over 420 experts in address and streets data will be in attendance, including representatives from over two thirds of the authorities that are responsible for creating and maintaining the address and street information that goes into creating AddressBase, the UK’s most definitive address data containing nearly 43 million addresses and the OS MM Highways Network, with over 1.3 million streets.

Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace said; “With the overall theme of ‘Linking people to places’, speakers throughout the day will demonstrate how linking data places adds value, gives better insight into an area and its citizens and allocates the provision of more targeted services. Councils across Great Britain rely on information from hundreds of different sources. Adding the location information to datasets such as social care, school admissions, council tax collection, waste management, electoral registration or planning applications can help make deeper sense of data once it's linked together.”

At the conference;

• The Director of the newly established Geospatial Commission will provide an introduction and overview on why Government views all this data as a critical national resource
• Ofcom will discuss superfast broadband and universal service
• The Department for Transport will talk about improving streetworks coordination
• Kent County Council will demonstrate how the UPRN links health and social care
• Wolverhampton Council will talk about the role of addressing in business transformation
• CIPFA will highlight the importance of addressing in identifying fraud and error in business rates
• In a double header the Valuation Office Agency and the Local Government Association will talk about the census and its impact on local government finance
• In a provocatively titled presentation ‘Why I (still) hate addresses’, the Valuation Office Agency will highlight the role of information sharing with the VOA
• The Transport Network ITS Spatial Data Deployment Platform will discuss the delivery of a European wide intelligent transport system
• Another speaker from the Department of Transport will talk about the work of councils in enabling funding allocations for streets
• Speakers from Thames Water, Western Power Distribution and Highways England will discuss how good quality streets data from councils enables them to make informed decisions
• Street Naming and Numbering is an important part of the day – a dedicated session will focus on a five-year action plan for good addressing and provide advice to councils on matters such as legislation and charging.

Councillor Ian Ward, the Leader of Birmingham City Council will present the Exemplar Awards to the winners of GeoPlace annual Awards for innovation and data quality. The conference is supported by a 15-strong exhibition from suppliers to local government, who are there to meet existing customers and impress future ones.