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November 2011 - Manchester Geomatics Ltd (MGL) win the AGI INNOVATION & BEST PRACTICE (PRIVATE SECTOR) 2011 award for an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Geographic Information" for our development of the development of a National Address Register (NAR) for the 2011 Census.
The 2011 Census was built around a completely new model – the post out-of forms to every household in the country rather than the traditional hand delivery by enumerators. This approach had potential to contribute multi million pound savings to the census process but required an exceptionally high quality address register.
To that end three major national address bases were evaluated and each was judged to have significant limitations for Census use. National address products had improved hugely since the previous census but none on their own was of significant quality to form a complete and, critically, consistent frame for the Census.
It was decided that a single National Address Register (NAR) would be produced using intelligence from all three products, incorporating the latest change intelligence from the three sources and other address sources, that these would be cross matched against buildings on OS Mastermap. A field check of 15% of the addresses nationally was also used to correct the list in areas where there were believed to be most inconsistencies between sources.
A contract was awarded to a consortium comprising Lockheed Martin and Manchester Geomatics Ltd (MGL). Lockheed were responsible for contract management, the provision and maintenance of the hardware platform and quality assurance. MGL were responsible for the design and implementation of the address matching algorithms, the spatial match against map data, and the provision of an interactive address matching workbench “Addressing IT” which provided ONS with access to source data and the provenance of every address in the National Address Register (NAR which could also be validated against mapping and aerial photography.
Alistair Calder, Head of Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Beyond 2011,
(Formerly Head of Address Register, 2011 Census) at ONS said of the project:
“We believe that the NAR project delivered the single most reliable list of current household addresses ever compiled in England and Wales. It also delivered the most transparent, auditable and evidence based address register yet compiled. This was confirmed in extensive field checks on up to 15% of the addresses in the NAR and we are confident will be borne out in both the Census results and the Census follow-up-survey results. This was a radical change in the Census model and all of the signs are that it has been highly effective.
MGL delivered this project under exceptionally tight timescales. They were innovative, flexible and responsive. Best of all the ONS and MGL teams worked closely together and there was excellent two-way sharing of ideas and methods.
This project was far too complicated and innovative to expect it to run ‘smoothly’ – but joint team work, flexibility and exceptional commitment helped smooth out the inevitable bumps better than in any other project I’ve ever been involved in.
The NAR has been central to a huge improvement in the Census process. The resources released by being able to post out effectively has enabled much more effective targeting of resources – equivalent to tens of millions of pounds worth of benefit in improved quality.”
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February 2011 - MGL’s Role in Ensuring Successful Delivery of the 2011 Census Post-Out
Manchester Geomatics (MGL) have recently completed, in good time, a hugely successful program of work to develop a comprehensive National Address Register (NAR) to the Office for National Statistics for delivery of the 2011 Census forms. The work was carried out in partnership with Lockheed Martin and the Office for National Statistics and involved the development, analysis and maintenance of a complete national address register, from which residential addresses were extracted for a Census post-out. This included delivery of software for subsequent maintenance and update of the NAR. Allan Shaw from Lockheed Martin commented that “without your brilliance, expertise, determination, attention to detail and above all teamwork, the Census programme wouldn't be looking quite so good with 27M forms printed and no where to send them!”
MGL’s Chairman, Professor Robert Barr OBE explains that “For MGL this has been the culmination of at least a ten year journey in addressing, which has taken us from warning ONS there may be a problem in 2001, diagnosing identifying and quantifying the problem in 2003, to delivering a NAR, which should avoid these previous gross errors in 2010. The MGL team should feel very proud of themselves for an outstanding piece of work”.
Glen Watson, Census Director at ONS praised the overall project “This is a tremendous achievement; the culmination of several years of hard work and the determination to do a good job really shines through. None of this could have been achieved without the teamwork and partnership between all the organisations involved. Our thanks go out to you all.”
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November 2010 - Successful Tender to Deveop a Local Information System for North Yorkshire and York.
MGL have recently been commissioned to develop and maintain a Local Information System for North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York Council. The website will deliver a business intelligence solution, which will routinely collect, process, store and disseminate relevant information and will provide end users (members of the general public, Council members and partner agencies) with the functionality to analyse and download both local and national data sets. In order to present this data, the system will give users the ability to map, chart and table information as well as provide users with GIS capability.
The website will be based on MGL’s Geographic Enquiry and Display Interface (GEDI) but will include an element of customisation. It will be supported by a data warehouse facility and hosted externally.
North Yorkshire covers almost 2 million acres and geographically is the largest County in England and Wales. The County includes the towns of Harrogate, Selby, Skipton, Richmond and Scarborough as well as the City of Ripon and the County town of Northallerton. The City of York Council serves the city of York and its surrounding area. Covering 105 square miles, the district of York comprises an urban area centred on the historic city of York surrounded by many small rural and semi rural communities. The area has a population of 195,400