Mission one of the UK Geospatial Strategy 2030 highlights that geospatial applications are being transformed by technology innovation, from satellite technology to Artificial Intelligence, 3D mapping and insights into population movement. These changes are impacting the way geospatial applications can help to tackle global resilience challenges.
Communities all over the world face resilience challenges, which include increasingly severe and frequent shocks and stresses related to natural hazards, economic uncertainty, global supply chain disruption and a changing geopolitical landscape. The geospatial community has an important role to play in this area, from being integral parts of resilience planning efforts to providing information to help with measuring, modelling and mitigating global risks.
The Geospatial Summit, which is being held later this month, will seek to bring together a small group of leading policy, data and technology stakeholders to explore the ways in which new technology innovation will impact three resilience issues in particular: food security, natural hazards and sea level rise.
The overall aim of the Summit is to further build a collective understanding of how geospatial technology innovation is impacting on planning, mitigation and adaptation for these resilience issues. This could include new types of analysis that can be undertaken, considerations around speed, scale and cost, the management of shocks in real time or in the preparedness to and mitigation from resilience challenges. Outputs from the Summit discussions will be published later this year.
At the capture phase, advances in sensor technology are allowing more data to be captured at increasingly higher resolution and more frequently. The combination of satellite, aerial and ground-based LiDAR sensors are also allowing us to rapidly move from the 2D to 3D world, and increasingly to consider a fourth dimension of time.
Whilst the ability to process data in 3D is nothing new, machine learning (ML), AI, cloud computing and increasing processing power are key enablers to making this data usable at scale. These innovations are enabling more rapid processing and interpolation of data. This gives us an opportunity to understand our environment, both natural and manmade, with an unprecedented frequency and level of detail. They also offer new opportunities to combine, interrogate and analyse data, creating new insights and knowledge in the process.
On the human side, technology and behavioural change in relation to our use of mobile devices is creating new sources of data and an increasing ability to understand aggregated trends in population movement and behaviour. The billions of data points produced daily have great potential to support improved resilience planning, while also raising data management challenges and ethical questions that need to be considered.
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]]>The Geospatial Commission has launched a new discovery project to determine if and how additional benefits could be delivered by increasing access to the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) data.
NUAR is an emerging digital map of underground pipes and cables that is revolutionising the way we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure. Initially NUAR is being made available to underground asset owners and their supply chain to support the ‘safe dig’ use case.
This exciting new discovery project, part funded by the Government Office for Technology Transfer, will explore the potential benefits of widening access to NUAR and the constraints surrounding new propositions. We believe potential opportunities include making NUAR:
However, these opportunities do not come without constraints and risks. Our discovery work aims to assess both the feasibility and value of such opportunities, with only the ideas that prove to be truly feasible and have the support of our asset owner community and national security stakeholders taken forward in future years.
Since the inception of NUAR, we have regularly been contacted by individuals and organisations interested in accessing NUAR data for purposes beyond the ‘safe dig’ use case currently permitted. In a public consultation we held in 2022, 75% of respondents stated that they were supportive of expanding the prescribed use cases for NUAR beyond ‘safe digging’.
Many respondents suggested specific additional use cases, which could help maximise the value and benefit of the data held within NUAR. We have also been contacted by several data service providers, asking how they can support asset owners in ensuring NUAR data is used in as many excavations as possible.
To date we have intentionally focused our efforts on delivering the critical safe dig use case. However, with the minimum viable product (MVP) now available across the whole of England and Wales, and work progressing on updating existing legislation, we believe that now is the right time to explore potential opportunities from widening secure and controlled access to NUAR.
Over the next year we will be carrying out discovery work, collaborating with individuals and organisations who are interested in emerging opportunities, to test the feasibility and value of different propositions.
Starting in spring 2024 we will be running a series of half day in-person workshops, to explore potential future uses in more detail. As themes emerge, we will reach out directly to potential participants with further details.
The evidence collected will inform our thinking on whether to extend access to National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) data, based on an improved understanding of the potential outcomes, benefits and uncertainties. This supports the Geospatial Commission’s mission to ‘drive greater use of geospatial applications and insights across the economy’.
You will be able to stay up-to-date on how the discovery project is progressing by reading project updates as and when they are published.
Stakeholders wishing to participate can contribute in several ways, with varying levels of time-commitment required.
You can now email Nuar.Support@atkinsrealis.com with any ideas that you would like us to explore. Suggestions could span the areas of planning and design, asset management and maintenance, strategic planning, innovation or something else altogether.
If you are already familiar with NUAR, try not to constrain your thinking to what already exists. Do not feel you need to present a polished use case as we intend to work with respondents to shape new ideas during the project.
If you are less familiar with NUAR but are curious about the potential of the data, then please do get in touch, even if this is simply to express your interest. We are keen to hear from as wide a range of stakeholders as possible. We are also planning activities to help new audiences learn more about NUAR and generate ideas for potential future uses. These will be promoted soon.
Once you have contacted the team, we will let you know if any further details would be useful and stay in touch about the ways you can participate in our ongoing discovery process.
Please share this blog post with anyone in your organisation or beyond that might be interested or have suggestions we could consider.
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]]>The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) organised and ran an Open Standards “code sprint” event at the Geovation Hub in London between 30 October and 1 November 2023. Dr Neil Brammall, NUAR Technical Product Owner, led a Geospatial Commission team at the event and here reveals his key learnings, including why it was useful for developing the National Underground Asset Register service.
These events allow participants (typically technical experts and software developers) to evaluate and improve standards by producing prototypes and demonstrators which test and illustrate them and accelerate the development of those standards and their ultimate implementation in software products.
The standards covered in the sprint included a number of OGC API, data model and encoding standards, and also the “GEOINT Imagery Media for ISR” (GIMI) profile of the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) and the High-Efficiency Image Format (HEIF).
Attendees from all across the world attended, both in person and online, representing nearly 100 organisations and institutions. The Engineering Report which describes and summarises the findings of the whole event can be found on the OGC website.
Of particular interest to me, of course, was the thread focusing on the OGC Model for Underground Data Definition and Integration (MUDDI). The Geospatial Commission has been closely involved in the development of this standard through its National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) programme. The NUAR data model is the first implementation of the MUDDI model (effectively representing the UK excavation profile, of it) and it is exciting to see the standard moving towards publication and adoption, initially as a high-level conceptual model.
The Geospatial Commission actively supported the code sprint, by sending attendees along for all three days of the event, but also ahead of time by making available a range of sample source data (with permission of course) from utilities and local authorities participating in NUAR in several formats, including Esri File Geodatabase, Shapefiles and GeoPackage. We also provided various artefacts related to the NUAR data model, including an encoding in Geography Markup Language (GML) format, as well as in a database format which is used in the implementation of the NUAR platform.
It was really important for us to support this event and to share the NUAR data model, as the widespread communication, understanding and adoption of a standardised data model across UK utilities and local authorities will be a massive step forward in improving the interoperability of data and ultimately the improvement of data quality across the sector. This is one of the key elements of the NUAR programme.
Lots of dedicated domain experts and software developers attended the code sprint, in order to get their hands on the MUDDI model to see what they could do with it.
A team from Ordnance Survey worked on a database implementation of a simple version of the MUDDI model, populated this with data and visualised that data on the last day of the event.
Some participants investigated the creation of a JSON-FG (OGC Features and Geometries JSON - JavaScript Object Notation) version of the MUDDI Conceptual Model – I explain below why this could be important, particularly in the UK.
One participant attempted to generate a GML file compliant with the NUAR data model and another carried out some analysis of the sample source data to attempt automatic identification of attributes with common semantic meaning across different datasets.
We learned a lot over those three days and across all of these activities!
The good news is that, as recorded in the engineering report:
“…the MUDDI conceptual model is implementable and could easily be used as the basis for a logical model that can be encoded in a variety of formats…”
In addition:
“…due to the evident increase in adoption across the developer community, there is an increasing need to offer validators so that developers can check for compliance more easily.”
So far so good, but there were plenty of challenges as well, arising from people coming with fresh eyes to MUDDI and the NUAR data model. We had deliberately kept the supporting documentation quite minimal to see how easy the concepts in the standard were to pick up for those who were not familiar with it.
The key learnings that we took away can be summarised as follows:
So overall, there was lots of positive feedback and also some constructive criticism to take away from this great event. We have already started work on some of the learnings that we took away, both in the MUDDI Standards Working Group and in the Geospatial Commission NUAR team.
The key message is that both MUDDI and the NUAR data model need clear, simple documentation and artefacts to go alongside them to make sure that some of the more complex structures and concepts are easily understood.
We have very much taken this to heart and are working on what this supporting documentation should look like, and how it can be targeted at organisations and individuals with different levels of experience and “data maturity”, as well as businesses that provide data services to these organisations.
The subsurface is crucial to all our futures in terms of extending our infrastructure to deliver complex needs and to adapt to climate change. The standardisation and interoperability of the data, which describes the subsurface, is going to be the key to efficient and collaborative progress in this space, and the opportunities presented by the MUDDI standard and the NUAR implementation of it are extremely exciting.
We are looking forward to carrying on this important work based on the feedback that the participants in the OGC code sprint gave us, so watch this space.
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]]>This piece is written by Christiana Clark, Principal Programme Officer in the Mayor of London’s Infrastructure Coordination Service at the Greater London Authority (GLA).
The Geospatial Commission is building a digital map of underground pipes and cables that will revolutionise the way we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure - the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR).
The Greater London Authority (GLA) are part of the NUAR delivery team and we are proud this month to help NUAR achieve a major milestone by Greater London becoming the first area to fully onboard all major utilities and local authorities to NUAR.
It has been a privilege to work alongside our enthusiastic, collaborative partners in the NUAR delivery team across the public and private sector. To mark this milestone, we wanted to reflect on learnings based on our involvement over the past four years.
Working as a statutory undertaker in London’s streets is challenging. Not only are we the most densely populated city in the country leading to logistical complexities before ground can even be broken, but the variety and age of our underground assets extend hundreds of years of history.
Site engineers must therefore take extreme care and effort when digging around London’s complex network of utility assets. These factors led the Geospatial Commission to choose London as one of the first pilot regions of NUAR in 2019. Shortly thereafter, the Greater London Authority, through the Mayor of London’s Infrastructure Coordination Service, became a delivery partner to the Geospatial Commission and we have supported the programme ever since.
Our primary mission has been to support the Geospatial Commission with the onboarding of asset owners due to our team’s existing strong relationships with relevant stakeholders across the capital.
Since then we have onboarded over 60 asset owners in the Greater London region, including all 33 local authorities and major utilities who operate within the Greater London boundary. We always knew that our underground utility network was dense, but until NUAR, there was no way of knowing how dense it really was. We now know that these 60 asset owners hold over 16 million asset records within the Greater London boundary.
One of our biggest learnings over the past four years is the role of change makers. Change makers help influence their organisations - driving change in the short term - to unlock future long-term benefits.
In our experience, change makers do not share the same title, have the same remit or even work for the same types of organisations – their shared characteristic is that they are the people who can influence and bring change when change seems difficult.
This has been especially apparent with our local authority asset owners. While geospatial skills have reduced in local authorities, those GIS professionals who have remained have been critical change makers for NUAR.
These individuals were able to recognise the transformative benefits that NUAR could unlock in their councils, even though its benefits may not directly impact their own teams, and drive progress. It is largely because of these change makers that the programme has been able to extend so widely in a short space of time.
Another key learning we made was how open organisations could be when faced with a change they believed in. For example, the London-based telco provider Community Fibre was an early adopter of NUAR when no major telco provider in London had formally joined the programme.
We have also experienced brilliant examples of collaboration between asset owners who could be perceived as competitors in the same industry. BUUK Infrastructure, an industry leader when it comes to their asset data management, supported a player who was just at the beginning of their digitalisation journey by sharing learnings and recommendations with them.
This is one of the many examples where NUAR has generated value outside of its immediate core deliverables and driven improved data capture and quality in the sector.
The final learning we have made is the power of collaboration. The NUAR programme has always maintained the same message that NUAR is a product that has developed directly as a result of the needs communicated by the UK’s asset owners.
This means that at every stage of development in NUAR, we have relied on asset owners’ participation to help shape NUAR into a platform that will ultimately meet their needs.
Using an agile approach has ensured that we are flexible enough to cater to new requirements as NUAR starts to become used by asset owners. In London, it has been fantastic to see regular attendance of 60+ users at sessions where we discussed the current and future state of NUAR, and where we facilitated collaboration and discussion with each other.
We thank all asset owners for their open and honest feedback which will continue to influence and drive the development of the platform going forward.
Formal participation on NUAR is just step one. The next challenge, until NUAR is fully operational in 2025, will be for asset owners to integrate the platform into their existing practices.
Many of London's utility providers also operate outside of the Greater London boundary, so the planned rollout of the NUAR Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in the remaining regions of England and Northern Ireland by spring 2024 will enable adoption across their entire area of operation. We will continue to support our asset owners in London on this journey and look forward to future asset owners joining NUAR throughout the country.
In September 2021, following a competitive procurement round, the Geospatial Commission appointed AtkinsRéalis to deliver the ‘build phase’ of NUAR. AtkinsRéalis are working with Ordnance Survey, 1Spatial, GeoPlace and the Greater London Authority.
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]]>Today, Viscount Camrose announced that the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) - a digital map of underground pipes and cables that will revolutionise the way we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure - can now be accessed in its first UK locations
This is a major step in the delivery of NUAR which, as a team, we are very proud of. The service is starting to deliver the core functionality to meet the intended ‘safe dig’ use case, as well as data from over 80 asset owners in the first 3 regions (North East England, Wales and London). This includes all of the major energy and water providers, as well as smaller providers of these services, telecommunications companies, transport organisations and local authorities. I would like to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to those trailblazing organisations who have been the vanguard of NUAR, collaborating with us to get to this point. But it should be remembered that this is the ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP), and that there is lots more to come!
Well…a key reference point for us is the Government Service Standard - which helps teams to create and run great public services. An important point here is that services should ‘Iterate and improve frequently’. As a team, we really believe that ‘Using agile methods means getting real people using your service as early as possible'. Then making improvements throughout the lifetime of the service’.
The MVP is not a final end product, it is a key, exciting stage in the design and development of NUAR involving real users as part of an interactive learning process to refine functionality and processes in preparation for business use. Whilst the MVP can be used in business-as-usual practices, it is intended to complement rather than replace them at this stage, and allows users to both plan for future adoption and provide valuable feedback to enhance the service further. Importantly though, as with existing practices around statutory records, NUAR is never intended to replace requirements for ground investigation and safe digging practices as outlined in HSG47.
Well…development of new features, and refinement of existing ones, will continue (informed and supported by our asset owner communities). Additional asset owner datasets will be added in the three initial areas, as well as improvements to data currency. We will also be expanding the coverage of the service to include the remaining areas of England and Northern Ireland. Coverage will be increased in these areas iteratively - as and when we have a critical mass of data in each area.
I am pleased to say that not only are we publishing data from 80+ asset owners today, we have already received data from nearly 100 more organisations and agreements for us to be able to share this from over 70. And for any asset owners out there not yet sharing their data with us - the sooner we have it, the sooner we can make NUAR available for use in your area!
We are also working with a cross-section of stakeholders to define the NUAR future sustainable operating model, which includes:
We have been working alongside asset owners and other stakeholders since 2019 to develop the MVP service, security measures, data model and legal frameworks, and have been ably supported by a supply chain of world-leading experts in their fields. We have also been learning from previous projects such as VISTA, Mapping the Underworld, Project Iceberg and HADES, as well as from those who have created similar services such as the Scottish Roadworks Commissioner VAULT system and operational systems in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
In addition to this, we have been testing the NUAR service with 40+ users for the last four months to ensure we were ready for this launch. The results of our collaborative approach has resulted in extremely positive feedback from this group - with satisfaction scores of 8.18/10 and likelihood to recommend scores of 9.63/10.
The property sector is constantly evolving in response to new opportunities and challenges. Changing working habits, new technologies and climate change are increasing the demand for new types of location data about property to support planning, construction, purchasing and retrofitting.
Location data and technologies can support transparency, efficiency and productivity throughout the property ecosystem. In our annual plan for 2022/23, the Geospatial Commission committed to identifying future opportunities for innovative use of location data related to properties. This supports commitments to improving the home buying and selling process made in last year’s Levelling Up White Paper. It also aligns with HM Land Registry's strategy ‘Enabling a world-leading property market’, which sets out how land registration in England and Wales will be transformed by harnessing the power of digital tools, automation and high-quality data. This will enable a more efficient property market, and speed up the homebuying process.
Location data supports the property ecosystem in a number of ways.
Location data about land use and planning informs decisions about, what and where to build. When a property is constructed, developers, engineers and surveyors need to know what the underlying geology is and whether the land is suitable for construction. At the point of property sale, location data, such as land ownership, mine works proximity and radon risk, are an essential part of the searches required.
Later on, in a building’s life retrofitting may become necessary, for example, to make the building more energy efficient. Data on the roof orientation will indicate whether the property would benefit from solar panels and data about the age of properties within a street, can help determine the suitability of retrofit measures such as insulation. This geospatial information is particularly useful for central government, local authorities, housing associations, developers or other organisations who may have a need to consider this information about more than one property at a time.
These are just a few examples, but there will be many more ways that geospatial information can help drive data-driven decisions across the property ecosystem.
Housing and local planning is one of the nine opportunity areas identified in the UK’s Geospatial Strategy where there is huge potential to be realised from improved use of location data. Over the last few years, the Geospatial Commission has delivered a number of activities in this area.
In 2020, we released Unique Property and Street Reference Numbers under the Open Government Licence, making it easier to link data relating to properties. We also brought together more than 65 housing, land and planning geospatial datasets in one place to make data easier to find.
The Geospatial Commission’s Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) with the Ordnance Survey (OS) provides more than 5,000 public sector organisations unlimited access to OS data in order to underpin the efficient and effective delivery of public services and policy-making. The contract also enables private sector organisations to access up to £1,000 per month of OS premium data for free. Over the next few years, as part of the 10-year PSGA contract, OS will release new datasets, including additional property attributes such as property age, building height, presence of basement and roof shape.
We also intend that the PSGA will benefit from access to Valuation Office Agency (VOA) data as a supplementary data source to augment existing data. In September 2021, the government committed to expanding access to property attribute data held by the VOA and we are currently seeking legislation to create a new data-sharing gateway to allow property attribute data held by the VOA to be made available to the public and private sectors.
This year, building on the landscape data review by Newgate Research in 2021, we have been exploring opportunities across the property ecosystem where location data related to residential and commercial properties could unlock greater value.
In September and early October, we ran a series of roundtables hosted by our Commissioner Alex Notay and attended by experts from a range of private and public sector organisations. The roundtable discussions drew on the diverse expertise present to discuss opportunities, use cases and challenges relating to location data and land registration, construction, embedded carbon and retrofitting.
Analysing the information to date, we have identified some initial common themes, questions and cross-cutting challenges:
Data standards are crucial, but in many areas, they can be difficult to work with due to the large number of standards and their complexity. For example, there are a huge number of environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards for the property sector.
This is a growing issue as data is increasingly re-used for multiple purposes, often outside the specific sector, which it was originally created for. Our engagement has highlighted action from the community to streamline requirements where possible such as the RED Foundation.
Increasing access, reducing duplication and increasing quality would improve efficiency and open up opportunities across the property sector. As mentioned above, the Geospatial Commission is working with the VOA to develop a new legislative gateway to increase access to the property attribute data they hold.
Expanding access to the data will support economic growth, delivery of better infrastructure and essential government functions. For example, aiding emergency responders by identifying below-ground properties, enabling them to prioritise flood response efforts.
However, data sharing and access need to be carefully balanced with concerns about fraud, privacy and intellectual property.
The government has a role in maintaining and providing access to key property datasets. Some of the foundational location property datasets underpinning the ecosystem are managed or regulated by the public sector, such as land registration (managed by HM Land Registry) or addressing information (owned by Royal Mail and regulated by OFCOM). Many stakeholders want the government to maintain or increase access to these datasets, particularly in areas where authoritative data is essential.
Data is often created in silos, limiting the ability to consider wider use cases. Where data issues are tackled individually, there can be knock-on effects on the whole system or missed opportunities for wider benefits.
Considering the whole system can enable greater transparency, efficiency and productivity. For example, it can be helpful to consider how buyers and sellers interact with data about a property through the whole home buying and selling process or to consider the impacts of water use and biodiversity of a new development alongside its energy efficiency.
However, it can be very challenging to take a fully holistic approach, which considers multiple datasets and land use cases, as the secondary impacts of land use change can be almost limitless. We are exploring how location data and spatial modelling can support complex land use decision-making in the National Land Data Programme.
Over the coming months, we will continue to engage across the ecosystem focusing on the emerging findings and any actions that can unlock benefits before publishing our findings in late spring.
If you have challenges, ideas and opportunities around location data related to property please get in touch at geospatialcommission@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
If you want to hear more about how location data is helping to improve the property market, listen to the People in Property podcast, Location Data's Going Digital by MoveIQ's Phil Spencer, where we join the conversation.
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]]>The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy set an aim to secure the UK’s status as a science and technology superpower. The UK’s geospatial community is doing its bit towards this goal with a very successful trip to the UN World Geospatial Information Congress and external recognition as the UK retained its position as second in the world for geospatial capability.
In October, the UK sent a diverse delegation to the second UN World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) in Hyderabad, India. Led by Thalia Baldwin and David Henderson, the UK delegation included representation from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Ordnance Survey, Office of National Statistics, British Geological Survey, UK Hydrographic Office and the Geospatial Commission. The UK’s representation was further supported by a range of private sector colleagues from across the geospatial ecosystem.
The congress was convened by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), organised by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, and hosted by the government of India.
Held every four years, the UNWGIC is an opportunity to promote collaboration and conversation on the use of location data services and technology globally. Relevant governments, non-governmental organisations, academia and the private sector were involved, engaging the younger and the under-represented in society with an overarching theme: “Geo-Enabling the Global Village: No one should be left behind.”
Presentations from the UK delegation covered a range of topics that showcased the UK’s work and leadership on geospatial, data and technology. There was significant international interest in the role of the Geospatial Commission itself and how we set direction through the UK’s Geospatial Strategy, uniting various aspects of the UK ecosystem together. We presented our work on the policy aims of the Q-FAIR (quality, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) framework, the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), location data ethics and measuring the value of location data.
The conversations around data ethics and the value of data were of particular interest to UNWGIC audiences, with barely-contained excitement from several of the attendees which gave the session moderators a really nice challenge! It was great to see and a moment which made me appreciate, what an honour it is to work with the colleagues that I have in the Geospatial Commission and to be part of such a great UK delegation.
The number, quality and breadth of all of the UK presentations really demonstrated the UK’s expertise right across the geospatial ecosystem. It confirmed that we are amongst those nations leading the way in terms of the global conversation about geospatial and helping others to develop their capabilities.
This view is further supported by the publication of the Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure Readiness Index and Value Proposition for World Economy, Society, and Environment’ which was launched by Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the United Nations Statistics Division, at the UNWGIC. This index ranks the countries based on Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF) adoption, foundation data, partnerships and collaboration, industry leadership, application and user adoption of data, and finally data access, capability building and digital readiness. The index places the UK as number two in the world, behind the USA.
This conveniently brings me to my first take away from UNWGIC - it is almost like I planned it this way – which is that as we strive to further improve the quality, access, and use of geospatial data it is easy to focus on the negative elements of our ecosystem that need to be addressed and to lose sight of the fact that the UK ecosystem is world-leading. As a result, others are looking to the UK for leadership and guidance as they build and develop their own geospatial capabilities.
The fact that you have a) opened this blog at all, and b) have read to this point you are clearly part of the UK geospatial ecosystem in some way shape or form. I would therefore like to propose that once you get to the end of this blog you make a cup of tea (other beverages are available) and take a moment to just reflect with a degree of pride on the current state of the UK ecosystem and your contribution to the UK’s geospatial capability and global standing. Thank you!
However, time waits for no one, and like a good cup of tea if you do not pay attention before you know it has gone cold and ceases to be appealing any longer. This leads me onto my second take away and that is we cannot be complacent. From the range of talks and exhibitions at UNWGIC, it is clear how rapidly other countries are developing their capabilities aided by new technologies and uninhibited by legacy systems. This means they are able to make huge jumps in terms of the data and insights that they are able to realise, which is in turn having a profound impact on their decision-making and their abilities to leverage their respective global competitive advantage.
It is therefore critical that as a UK ecosystem we do not rest on laurels and continue to push the envelope in terms of thought leadership, policy development, technological enhancement, data capture and analytical capabilities.
The Geospatial Commission currently has a Call for Evidence open for responses as part of its work to refresh the UK’s Geospatial Strategy. This provides an opportunity to share your views on the future of the UK ecosystem, and I would encourage anyone reading this to consider responding and sharing with your networks.
The Call for Evidence is open until Monday 12 December 2022. A refresh of the UK’s Geospatial Strategy is due to be published in spring 2023.
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]]>The Local Land Charges Programme is unlocking the power of location data. Transforming 25 million items of public sector held data on land use restrictions into a machine-readable, standardised and easily accessible format will deliver huge benefits, particularly for digital planning and innovation in the UK property sector.
Mark Kelso, Local Land Charges Programme Director from HM Land Registry, tells us more about progress of the programme to date, and what others can learn from their approach.
Delivering large-scale projects on time and within budget is challenging, but when success requires working across multiple organisations it’s even more complex. This is the backdrop to the local land charges (LLC) digital transformation, involving more than 300 local authorities in England and Wales.
A LLC search is normally required during the property-buying process. Most charges are restrictions or prohibitions on the use of the property, such as planning permissions, listed building status or tree preservation orders.
Standardising LLC records which are currently held on paper, microfiche, electronically, digitally or in the minds of LLC Officers is a monumental task, but that’s the challenge we accepted. As a result of the LLC Register anyone requiring a LLC search from a migrated local authority can now get it instantly online. By quickening and simplifying this element of the conveyancing process, buying decisions can be made earlier, reducing the risk of property transactions falling through, due to late revelations. These failed transactions cost buyers time and up to £2,700 per incident.
By 2025, the LLC programme aims to transfer all LLC data to HM Land Registry’s national register. Through our official search service, everyone in England and Wales will have access to high-quality, guaranteed information for £15. Alternatively, they can opt for a free-of-charge personal search, or use a personal search company.
Clare Flanagan, Principal Solicitor at Bromsgrove and Redditch County Council said:
“Since we joined the national register in October 2021, we have had very few customer queries and those we have received have been straightforward and easy to resolve. The new service has freed up a large amount of resource and time, allowing us to focus on other areas of work”.
During the early days of the programme, we travelled to council sites to manually create the spatial extents (area of land/property affected by the LLC). This could take 3-10 minutes per charge, subject to complexity, and incurred time and travel costs. With an average of 50,000 charges per local authority, this was not sustainable.
To transform records often presented in paper, microfiche, or electronic formats we have developed two purpose-built tools. Our innovative Data Analysis Dashboard (DAD) tool analyses and audits the data. By highlighting where fixes are required, we can address high levels of data duplication and errors. This is critical to maintain the integrity of the register and increase migration pace.
The Migration Helper tool provides a single space where local authorities and HM Land Registry can work through data issues identified by DAD. The Helper suggests spatial extents for each local land charge. This allows for digital spatial extents to be captured for every charge in under one minute, saving months of work per migration.
We also now use machine learning and Optical Character Recognition to extract and convert written information held on scanned images of LLC records into textual data. The digital data is then loaded into the Migration Helper, pre-populating the data-capture screens. These enhancements have increased our per-day productivity five-fold, as well as improving data quality.
As we’ve digitised, transformed, and transferred data to the register, we have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge. As a result, 50 local authorities are already benefiting from a modern, digital LLC service. We have also dramatically increased the pace of migrations due to our commitment to continuous improvement and an effective lessons learnt process.
We have digitised and transferred more than 2.5 million charges, allowing nearly 366,000 automated searches to be conducted. Buyers of official searches have saved more than £860,000 and have the added benefit of a state-backed guarantee. As our service is totally digital, it’s available 24/7 and delivers results instantly.
By 2023, a third of local authority areas will have instant access to LLC information, rising to two-thirds the following year. When the project is complete, property buyers, developers, innovators, and policymakers will all have access to LLC across England and Wales.
The Local Land Charges Programme is one of the most ambitious geospatial data transformation ever attempted by a UK government. But the migration of LLC records is only part of our story. As more local authorities pass from data migration into live service, we will continue to support them and the other Originating Authorities to fulfil their obligations.
Digital technology presents significant opportunities to extract greater value from our data. So, in the new year, we plan to hold an event in the Geovation Hub to un-tap any hidden value in this rich pool of high-quality interoperable data.
Working in partnership with Ordnance Survey, we will be encouraging entrepreneurs to examine the dataset to identify other social and economic benefits. An open ecosystem of digital services that support property transactions is developing, supported by our data and service connections. We must continue to work with customers, stakeholders, and the market to achieve our goal and find new ways to improve home buying and selling. Our determined approach is already having an impact on the market and other government departments who seek to implement the lessons we’ve learnt.
Andrew Lloyd, Managing Director, Search Acumen said:
“It’s very easy at the start of any digital transition to feel as though there’s a mountain to climb, but our analysis shows that thousands of property buyers and their legal advisers are already enjoying the benefit of having instant access to digitised records of vital information that can make or break the progress of a transaction.”
Our digitisation programme is well underway and the benefits for customers and the market are clear to see. What is yet to be investigated are the secondary benefits that arise from the spatial data and the impact this could have socially and economically. We will share more about this in the coming months, as the work within the Geovation Accelerator Programme is developed.
HM Land Registry are one of six partner bodies that the Geospatial Commission has a formal relationship with. They play a central role in the delivery of the UK’s Geospatial Strategy, through the geospatial data they hold and their extensive expertise.
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]]>In December 2021 the Geospatial Commission published a blog highlighting the importance of location data, why it is so difficult to value, and the Geospatial Commission’s commitment to publishing guidance on how to measure the economic, social and environmental value of location data investments in the public sector. This commitment was first announced in the UK’s Geospatial Strategy and reiterated in our 2022/23 Annual Plan.
The Geospatial Commission commissioned Frontier Economics to support the development of a practical framework for appraising these benefits. Over the past several months, the project consolidated experiences and expertise across the private and public sectors in order to produce a framework that is both proportionate and consistent with Green Book. The Green Book is HM Treasury’s guidance on how to appraise policies, programmes and project principles and is a prerequisite for public sector investments to secure funding.
The guidance, published on 4 August, provides a structured approach to measuring and assessing the economic, social and environmental benefits associated with geospatial data investments in the public sector when building a business case, including improvements to the data and/or the wider geospatial ecosystem. Whilst this guidance focused on data investments in the public sector context, we hope the guidance will also be useful to the private sector for future investments in the geospatial ecosystem.
To understand the different types of geospatial data investments and the existing methods of valuation, the research involved a targeted but wide-ranging evidence and literature review. To complement this review, the project interviewed a range of geospatial data holders and users from across the public and private sectors, inviting them to share their experiences of using and supplying location data. These interviews helped to identify the key geospatial data characteristics that drive value and potential use cases.
As highlighted in our previous blog, there are inherent challenges with valuing location data:
To help address these challenges, a seven-step framework was developed that provides the tools necessary to consistently and coherently understand and assess the value of location data, including best practice approaches. The guidance acknowledges where there are dependencies and notes the importance of “difficult to quantify” benefits from location data investments, for example, increasing access to data could lead to more experimentation and positively impact innovation, benefits of which are notoriously tricky to foretell, though in some cases, can be more important than other benefits that are easier to quantify.
We also published four case studies demonstrating the approach taken to assessing value of previous geospatial investments, representing a diverse range of interventions, impacts and valuation methods. The case studies cover:
The seven-step framework provides users with a way of capturing value whilst maintaining analytical rigour and integrity.
Figure 1: Step-by-step framework for benefit appraisal
The approach set out in the guidance is referred to as the “use-case approach” which is intended to estimate value based on the different applications affected by the geospatial investment. In lieu of quantifiable benefits, a strong narrative and logical reasoning becomes a more crucial element of the case for investment.
Overall, the seven steps within the framework should provide decision-makers with a richer picture of how the investment will affect the geospatial ecosystem, specific groups of stakeholders and society more widely. This should ultimately help achieve greater consistency in approaches used to value geospatial data across the public sector.
The first five steps involve the development of a conceptual theory of change (see figure 2 below). Step 1 articulates the rationale behind the intervention and Step 2 classifies the investment to identify potential gaps or overlaps in intended impact.
Step 3 links the investment to specific data characteristics (if relevant) to determine drivers of change to potential applications and uses. This step is key to understanding the value of a geospatial data asset, as its value is dependent on its characteristics and intended use. Any investment could alter one or more characteristics which affect the potential applications of the data and therefore its value.
Steps 4 and 5 are used to identify applications, use cases and potential benefits. To complement this step, the guidance is accompanied by examples of use cases associated with various geospatial datasets as well as more detailed use cases from organisations that have previously made geospatial investments.
By developing a theory of change (and conducting a Q-FAIR Assessment), organisations can begin to understand and demonstrate what impact their investment will have on use cases.
Figure 2: Theory of Change for geospatial data investments
Figure 3: Q-FAIR assessment
Steps 6 and 7 conclude the framework by relating to the empirical and/or qualitative assessment, quantification and monetisation of the benefits identified in the theory of change. The combination of these steps should provide a comprehensive approach to measuring and assessing the economic, social and environmental benefits associated with geospatial data investments.
We would be keen to hear from organisations that put this framework into practice, if you have used this framework then please get in touch with us at geospatialcommission@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
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]]>Ricky Terrington, Senior Geospatial Data and Technologies Lead at British Geological Survey (BGS), explains how an important step forward to help data-driven decision making has been made with the relaunch of the Construction Playbook.
As stated in the UK’s Geospatial strategy, there is huge potential for better use of site-specific location data to improve the way that national infrastructure is planned, built and managed. The re-launch of the Construction Playbook means it is now a requirement for public sector projects that any ground investigation data collected must be shared as soon as reasonably practical with the British Geological Survey (BGS).
Did you know that currently when a borehole is drilled the information gained is often only used once?
Around 500,000 boreholes are sunk in the UK every year, mainly for construction and infrastructure projects. Data is collected from these boreholes by geotechnical specialists who interpret the findings to inform decisions at feasibility, option selection, design and construction stages of a build project.
The BGS has a collection of over a million UK borehole records held in the National Geoscience Data Centre, and thousands of new ground investigation records are added each year. This data provides vital geological, geotechnical and geoenvironmental information that is essential for construction, infrastructure and academic research.
The BGS estimates that 80% of borehole data is not reported to them, resulting in an estimated loss of data and knowledge to the UK economy valued in the region of £150-200 million per year. Imagine how much better it would be if newly acquired borehole data was submitted to the BGS and then made available for all to use.
It would also be beneficial for those who are paying for the construction. Having a more complete picture of previous ground investigation data is crucial for the construction industry as a whole and many other connected sectors. This would enable better design and decision-making around ground risk and cost at an early stage, reducing incidents of ‘unforeseen ground conditions’ delaying a project.
Unlocking ground investigation data is key to ensuring that data can be used for the greater good. For example, Farringdon Station is one of the flagship stations on the newly opened Elizabeth Line forming part of the London underground network. This area of construction was supported by a robust ground-truthed 3D geological model created by the BGS and taken forward by the project partners (Dr Sauer Group and BAM Ferrovial Kier Joint Venture).
The BGS, alongside the project partners, were able to utilise a wealth of historical borehole data both held by the different project partners and augment this with newly acquired ground investigation data, to better predict the ground conditions. This led to a 70% reduction of in-tunnel probing from original plans and delivered a cycle of risk reduction thereby saving significant amounts of time and costs. Find out more about this project.
There are a number of initiatives to help address this problem such as the ‘Dig to Share’ project which works with the industry to change the culture around data sharing. BGS has also put in place data sharing agreements with organisations, like Network Rail, Environment Agency and the Welsh Government, committing them, and their contractors, to provide their ground investigation records to the BGS.
Last year the Geospatial Commission collaborated with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), BGS and representatives from key consultants and contractor organisations to explore what more could be done to tackle barriers to data sharing.
Since then BGS has been working with the IPA to develop standardised clauses about ground investigation data that can be used by all public sector organisations. These clauses are now in the latest version of the Construction Playbook, which sets out key policies and guidance for how public works projects and programmes are assessed, procured and delivered. The Playbook should be adopted by central government and arm’s length bodies on a ‘Comply or Explain’ basis.
From now on if a government department or agency commissions a contractor to carry out work it should add into the contract a clause that requires the provision of subsurface data to the BGS. This will mean the data collected will become part of the UK repository of subsurface data allowing for greater access and re-use.
This is a fantastic FAIR step forward towards the better re-use of data and will affect all construction/infrastructure work carried out by the public sector. For the first time, careful management and curation of ground investigation data will be considered at procurement, costed for and written into contracts as a deliverable.
This will have a huge positive impact on the number of records being deposited with BGS, for others to make use of in the future. Increased geospatial data will be available on a project, enabling better decisions, and reducing costs and chances of delay in construction projects undertaken by the government and others, across the UK.
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