GeoPlace is providing new guidance for councils to ensure their use of address data complies with emerging standards, writes local authority liaison manager Hannah Brooks
Efforts to develop and deploy data standards for local government have taken on a new momentum in recent months – and GeoPlace is providing resources to ensure these extend to address and street data.
It reflects the importance of standards in enabling councils to realise the full value of the data they hold in solving problems and supporting their communities, and in collaborating with other bodies and sharing their solutions.
Data standards have been well championed by the Local Government Association (LGA) since at least the 1990s, recognising that standardised data is at the heart of local service delivery. The LGA was a key driver in the development of BS7666, the national standard for geographic referencing, and enabling the development of standardised land, property and street gazetteers, including unique identifiers that remain the same over time and are easy to exchange between systems.
The LGA has been instrumental in the development and adoption of data standards to enhance local service delivery. Through its Better Use of Data Programme, the LGA offers a range of free support to help councils recognise the full value of data and utilise it effectively for decision making.
More recently, the Local Digital team in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has identified that data standards are central to the digital transformation that is necessary to help councils deliver better services and increase productivity.
It recently highlighted how technical and data governance issues can provide barriers to making the best use of data, and to councils sharing successful solutions. This has prompted it to begin a discovery project focused on the benefits of standards, the relevant governance and where to prioritise the development of new standards.
Importance of UPRNs and USRNs
Which is where the other assets come in: unique property reference numbers (UPRNs), the unique identifiers for every addressable location in Great Britain, and unique street reference numbers (USRNs), which provide the function for every street. These were mandated by the Open Standards Board in 2020 to be used by government in referencing and sharing information about properties and streets, and are bound to be a core feature of data standards for local government.
GeoPlace, the organisation that manages UPRNs and USRNs at a national level, is continually working to support their utilisation in the sector. It has recently published a set of policy principles to support the effective use of address data in local authority software systems, based on the Open Group Architecture Framework format and including a template for their adoption.
The principles provide a structured approach to integrating the UPRN into council systems, ensuring accurate, efficient, and consistent use of property information across departments. They have attracted the support of the LGA and Socitm, who recognise that data standards and the ability to harness data improves public services.
The primary high level principle is that all council systems referencing property information MUST use the UPRN as a necessary step towards making full use of the data. It is underpinned by five sub-principles:
- Consuming - Relevant software must use the UPRN and official addresses from a data product defined by the person or team in charge.
- Updating - Address data must be updated on a regular schedule appropriate to the department’s/service’s needs, with errors communicated to the authority address custodian.
- Interpreting - Software must be able to handle the one-to-many multiplicity within the defined source of data and correctly construct an address from its fields.
- Displaying - The UPRN must be visible and searchable.
- Sharing - Where software provides exports or reports of departmental information that references properties, it must do so with the UPRN.
The template goes into more detail on each of these, making clear the behaviour/requirement being applied, the rationale of why it is important for a local authority to implement, and implications of what needs to happen to achieve the principle. It also explains that it is possible to adapt the principles or use them in part as necessary for an authority.
Overall, the document is intended as technical guidance, giving local authorities the framework and detail required to adopt the principles in a way that suits them and fits with their existing policies or broader strategic principles.
Procurement and integration
GeoPlace has provided further support in the form of guidance on the procurement of software that uses UPRNs and USRNs, and a data integration toolkit.
The procurement guide has been developed from engagement with local authorities and includes two sets of questions and considerations for address and street gazetteers. They look at areas that include compliance with data standards, integration capabilities, spatial data consumption and interoperability, compliance with relevant local authority policies, application functionality and liaison with GeoPlace.
These can be adapted to the specific requirements of a council and should be used in conjunction with its wider strategies and technology platforms.
The UPRN integration toolkit provides local authority service managers with a series of questions to ask about the role of address data and UPRNs in their service areas and the systems used. The answers will feed into a grading of how well integrated the systems are with the UPRN and its ability to facilitate data linking for a range of purposes. They can also highlight areas to focus on to improve the capability for integration.
GeoPlace is aiming to spread awareness of the principles and the foundational role of UPRNs and USRNs in enabling cross-organisational data to be linked and analysed at a very granular level. As the LGA says, the UPRN is “is key to almost everything that’s delivered or achieved by councils”.
Public sector IT association Socitm has recently published its Public Sector Digital Trends 2025 research, which highlights ‘harnessing data’ as a key focus point and recognises that the impact of AI depends on data quality and governance, areas which these policy principles are set to enhance.
GeoPlace is now working with techUK's Local Public Services Programme to run a webinar in conjunction with the LGA and Socitm. It is set to take place at 10am on 12 March and will provide a great opportunity to learn more about how UPRNS and USRNs fit within the wider application of data standards in local government.
To take part in the webinar you can sign up here. For more information on the use of UPRNs in local authority systems, email support@geoplace.co.uk.
