GGP Transforms Lake District Council Services

17 April 2008, 12:12pm

Croydon, UK - GGP Systems is helping Cumbrian local authority Copeland Borough Council transform customer service with a specially developed address management system that simplifies access to council information. The NGz Gazetteer Management System holds geo-referenced land, property and street details and provides an instant link to council systems, websites and to the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG).

With headquarters in Whitehaven on the Cumbrian coast and home to the highest mountain and deepest lake in England, two thirds of Copeland Borough Council is within the Lake District National Park. Copeland is already playing a key role in the formation of a national address database providing daily updates to the national NLPG hub and is hoping to transform the delivery of services and information by integrating the address data with customer facing applications such as the Council’s Customer Relationship Management system and back office systems.

“As part of a review of IT infrastructure we identified a fundamental need for system openness, GGP’s NGz software was attractive for this very reason,” said Michael Everingham, ICT Systems Support Manager. “Systems, including our previous gazetteer management software, that did not meet this requirement have been, and are being replaced, in order to achieve an ambitious transformation of service delivery and information sharing.”

GGP NGz is specifically designed to manage a Council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG); ensuring a consistent, up to date and accurate base for all property based information within an organisation. GGP NGz also manages the import and export of data between the local authority database and the NLPG, the national hub. The complete GGP NGz product suite was only the second software solution to receive accreditation to the new national address standard BS7666.

“GGP NGz is easy to use making the day to day management of the gazetteer much easier,” commented Stephanie Shaw, LLPG Clerk. “There are a number of simple yet intuitive functions that facilitate the transfer of information with other departments, systems and even external organisations.”

The data is already powering Copeland’s online mapping service. Visitors to the Councils website can enter a street name or postcode which is automatically matched against the address database returning possible matches. The visitor can then choose to view a range of service information including the location of facilities and local amenities including waste and recycling, health, leisure and transport. The site also offers a ‘where’s my nearest’ and ‘points of interest’ function delivering information about local features including the highest mountain, Scafell, and the deepest lake, Wast Water, in England.

Enquiries to Prim Maxwell at GGP tel. +44 (0)20 8686 9887, e-mail: prim@ggpsystems.co.uk, www.ggpsystems.co.uk

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