May 19, 2014 -- Gazetteer Management software from GGP Systems has helped the UK’s Ribble Valley Borough Council win a national award for improvements in the accuracy and quality of data used for referencing and accessing council records.  In just one year the Lancashire based council has leaped from Below and Achieving National Standard to Gold and Silver Standard in all categories. The assessment was made by GeoPlace who create and maintain the National Address Gazetteer, the database of all individual properties in England and Wales.

Ribble Valley’s hard work and determination were recognised with the presentation of the 2014 GeoPlace Exemplar Award for ‘Most Improved Address Data’ at an awards ceremony in Manchester last month.

Neil Silley, NLPG Custodian at GeoPlace who is responsible for the coordination of inputs from local authorities – the creators of address data - across England and Wales to ensure the quality and accuracy of this key national database, commented at the awards ceremony; “Over the last year Ribble Valley has improved in all 8 Improvement Schedule measures by 4 levels. In percentage terms their improvement in PAF and VOA linking was greater than any other authority and their overall level has risen to silver, just missing out on Gold by a handful of records.”

Ribble Valley Borough Council use GGP Systems NGz software to manage and maintain their Local Land and Property Gazetteer. With a range of tools and functionality GGP NGz is part of suite of Gazetteer Management Software that has been specifically designed to help Local Authorities and other users of address data to manage, maintain, use and share essential records. Ribble Valley is also a user of GGP Systems GIS.

Sarah Grimes, Authority Address Custodian and GIS Technical Officer at Ribble Valley Borough Council commented, “When I started just over a year ago we were underachieving in all 8 categories. The GGP software, used to store and maintain our gazetteer, was so easy to use that I was up and running in just a couple of days and didn’t even have to wait for a training course to be booked and attended. GGP’s helpdesk team are also really helpful and quick to respond.”

“The functionality of GGP NGz means it’s really easy to extract data and run reports and the Batch Report and Process tools are essential. Now that the gazetteer is up to date it is the main search engine for users of our GGP GIS and, as it is automatically updated to reflect any changes made, all staff have real time access to the latest information. We now hope to start linking the data, using GGP NGz, to other back office systems hopefully creating cost savings across the Authority.”

Contacts:
GGP Systems
+044 (0)208 686 9887
www.ggpsystems.co.uk