LLPG / NLPG

The importance of creating a properly integrated national address infrastructure, which allocates an immutable reference to each of the UK's properties and e-enables joined-up government, has long been recognised. Some 85% of all public and private sector datasets contain addresses, which are typically used as a standard search key. Effective management of address data by local and central government is thus critical to back-office efficiency and front-office performance.

In the mid 90's, an independent committee, sponsored by the Local Government Management Board working with the British Standards Institute and the Association for Geographic Information, specified the new 'open' addressing standard (BS7666). A local government committee then outlined the associated processes intended to create and maintain the national address infrastructure, which became known as the NLPG.

In 1999, funds for the development of the NLPG were unavailable from central government. The Local Government Information House (LGIH - a wholly owned company of the Improvement and Development Agency, IDeA), which was tasked with leading the initiative for local government, therefore sought a partner from the private sector.

At that time, few companies had specific experience of implementing BS7666 but one, Intelligent Addressing did. A private/ public partnership was formed whereby Intelligent Addressing invested seed capital to develop the NLPG initially, in return for a limited royalty payment from licensing the dataset subsequently. This partnership, along with the development of local land and property gazetteers by local authorities, turned the NLPG into a reality.