IGGI news

Trading Funds Assessment details announced

Further details of a Government assessment into trading funds were announced today by the Department for Business and the Treasury.

The review, announced as part of Budget 2008, will be conducted by the Shareholder Executive and will consider the benefits to the wider UK economy from any potential changes to the trading funds' business model.

If you want to know more, view the press release, Terms of Reference and the Trading Funds Assessment details.

Published: 25-06-2008

National Stats Postcode Directory (NSPD)

The National Statistics Postcode Directory (NSPD) is maintained by the Office for National Statistics. Until May 2006 it was known as the All Fields Postcode Directory (AFPD).

The NSPD is one of ONS Geography's key products. It lists all unit postcodes in the United Kingdom and assigns them to a range of administrative, health, electoral and other geographies. Postcode grid references are provided and counts of the number of addresses, delivery points and small businesses in each postcode are also available.

For further information visit the ONS website.

Published: 10-06-2008

AGI's INSPIRE Vision statement


The INSPIRE Directive sets out to improve the efficiency and efficacy of public services – those associated with European environmental policy in the first instance – through the provision of a European spatial data infrastructure.

The AGI has published its vision statement for INSPIRE; it is available here.

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Published: 30-05-2008

Coding and naming proposal for UK statistical geographies

ONS Geography (ONSG) is seeking comments on its proposal (see below) for a standard 9 character alpha numeric structure for all National Statistics area codes The proposal also includes a mechanism to administer and maintain these codes across the UK.

Comments on the proposal should be returned to ONSG via Nick O'Rourke by 30 September 2008.

ONS have already held discussions with some stakeholders and are in the process of arranging more meetings. These will provide further opportunities to develop their proposals and answer queries.

If you consider that a meeting with your department/business area would be useful, please contact Nick O'Rourke.

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Published: 16-05-2008

DBERR follows up on Power of Information report

DBERR has published the follow-up to the Power of Information report: Models of Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds. It is available here.

The principles of the "Power of information" report were accepted by the government and the government response is here.

The original report was published in June 2007 into the "Power of Information" by Tom Steinberg, founder and Director of mySociety, and Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council.

Published: 13-03-2008

Google Maps: Step by Step Case Study Guide


Technological improvements have meant that the collection of spatial data is becoming more frequent. However, dissemination of such data has relied on relatively expensive systems.

Google have released their Google Maps tool and its associated API to allow individuals to reused the Google data and tools and plug their own spatial data.

This offers a web mapping service at low cost and relative ease, removing the need for full-blown GIS Internet mapping services for simple applications.

This paper outlines a project that Communities and Local Government have run to publish the National Land Use Database.

This provides a step by step guide for this work.

Once you have followed all of these pointers you should be able to:

• Build a basic Google Maps page centring on wherever in the world you want at a set zoom level
• Provide control tools to allow the user to navigate
• Disseminate both point and polyline data with some attributes
• Provide a list of all the points’ titles in the side bar (very useful for searching in)
• Cluster a large number of points together to relieve the restrictions of point numbers
• Constrain the zoom levels that users can use

And more

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Published: 12-02-2008