Councils boost address data accuracy
Three local authorities have signed up to use new address verification software to improve their management of citizen data.


Three local authorities are taking on new address verification software to integrate with a key UK address database and better manage the citizen address data held on their systems.
The London Borough of Brent, Surrey County Council and Manchester City Council announced today they will use QAS Gateway, Experian QAS address verification software, to integrate with the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG).
The NLPG contains over 30 million residential, business and non-mailing addresses and is used extensively by local authorities in England and Wales.
The authorities are looking to reduce the costs associated with managing inaccurate and incorrectly formatted address data across multiple departments.
A 2006 report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated local government could tap efficiency gains of 54.4 million a year by using NLPG data.
By integrating the NLPG with verification software, the authorities will be able to ensure the accuracy of address data entering and already in their systems to prevent duplicate citizen records. And they will be able link addresses/citizens across departments using a unique property reference number (UPRN).
The software also offers Brent, Surrey and Manchester the opportunity to support data sharing and migration projects, as well as to append additional datasets to gain insight into the profiles of the types of people accessing public services.
Get the ITPro daily newsletter
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
Chris Waterman, client index project manager at London Borough of Brent, said: "We were keen to use QAS Gateway across Brent council to improve the quality of the address information we hold."
He said improving address quality is an important part of the council's ongoing Client Index project, which is building a single citizen view of those living and working in the borough.
"Introducing QAS software will enable us to exploit the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (a local version of the NLPG) and ensure we capture better quality data, first time," he added.
A 25-year veteran enterprise technology expert, Miya Knights applies her deep understanding of technology gained through her journalism career to both her role as a consultant and as director at Retail Technology Magazine, which she helped shape over the past 17 years. Miya was educated at Oxford University, earning a master’s degree in English.
Her role as a journalist has seen her write for many of the leading technology publishers in the UK such as ITPro, TechWeekEurope, CIO UK, Computer Weekly, and also a number of national newspapers including The Times, Independent, and Financial Times.
-
Cleo attack victim list grows as Hertz confirms customer data stolen
News Hertz has confirmed it suffered a data breach as a result of the Cleo zero-day vulnerability in late 2024, with the car rental giant warning that customer data was stolen.
By Ross Kelly
-
Lateral moves in tech: Why leaders should support employee mobility
In-depth Encouraging staff to switch roles can have long-term benefits for skills in the tech sector
By Keri Allan
-
Video will dominate content by 2013
News Video will become more prevalent in the workplace by 2013, says Gartner.
By Janae Olinger
-
Lessons to learn from a year of data breaches
In-depth In the year since the HMRC data breach, many more have been made public – here’s a roundup of 11 lessons (we should have) learned.
By Nicole Kobie
-
NHS denies it will 'sell' patient data to businesses
News As the discussion about patient confidentiality rumbles on, the NHS denies reports that it is prepared to sell patient data to third parties without consent.
By Asavin Wattanajantra