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Acacia Programme

Final Progress Report, 22 June 2004

The Acacia Group of four Government Departments, Royal Mail and the Local Government Information House has completed its programme of work on preparing the way for a National Infrastructure of addresses, with related mapping and property information, in accordance with its vision of December 2002 to promote the development of:

a definitive, consistent and joined-up national infrastructure of property addresses and related data with the related mapping so as to facilitate major economies, efficiencies and service improvements both in the public sector and throughout the economy.

The Group envisages that the proposed infrastructure would build wherever possible on what already exists.

At the request of Phil Hope MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at ODPM, the Group is today publishing on the web sites of member organisations the present progress report (and annex) and new reports on:

1. the piloting work at Basingstoke & Deane and Aylesbury Vale and related research work (final report by the pilot project managers, Rob Walker and Kate de Groot, working for the Programme Technical Team)
2. a study of multi-occupancy issues based on Nottingham City (report prepared by Robert James, Rob Walker and Robin McLaren)
3. a high-level study of user and stakeholder business requirements for addressing (report prepared by Rob Walker Consultancy)
4. a preliminary study of benefits and costs of a national infrastructure on the lines proposed (report by Frontier Economics)
5. supporting technical research papers and reports (see below).

The Annex to this Notice summarises some key messages from the reports.

Mr Hope has said:

“The Group has provided very useful, firm information about the need for and problems with providing a single national address database. I will be studying the reports carefully as I consider the appropriate next steps for ODPM.”

The independent Chairman of the Group's Board, Andrew Edwards, has said:

“In the past twenty months, with help from ODPM, we have:

(a) formulated a vision for the suggested national infrastructure and clarified many aspects of it,

(b) conducted and disseminated a substantial amount of piloting and research work, which we believe will be invaluable,

(c) helped in preparing the foundations for a business case for the national infrastructure, and

(d) identified options for what should happen next.

Our Group is not in a position to decide or implement the proposed national infrastructure itself. We believe, however, that we have now done all we realistically can to prepare the way for such decisions. Our Group will not, therefore, continue in its present form, although the members expect to keep in close touch and to work together to the extent possible.”

Background briefing

Acacia is a joint programme which has been pursued in consultation with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) by four government departments (Ordnance Survey, Land Registry, Registers of Scotland and the Valuation Office Agency), the Local Government Information House and Royal Mail.

The aim has been to test out proposals for a properly integrated and maintained national infrastructure of definitive addresses, street names, objects without postal addresses, land ownership and occupancy parcels, and other property information, all related to definitive mapping and building wherever possible on existing initiatives.

Although the programme has centred on England and Wales, the aim has been to examine solutions capable of application throughout the United Kingdom alongside similar initiatives in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The main reason for the involvement of Registers of Scotland has been to ensure that the parallel initiatives under the Acacia and the Definitive National Addressing - Scotland programmes follow a complementary path.

In addition to the main reports listed above, the Board is making available on the Ordnance Survey's web site http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/aboutus/reports/

the following supporting technical research papers and reports:

RA1 Objects without postal addresses

RA2 National Street Gazetteer

RA3 Cross-referencing

RA4 Quality issues

RA5 Impact of MasterMap / Positional Accuracy Improvement

RA6 Maintenance

Report by Northgate blue8 on data matching at Basingstoke & Deane and Aylesbury Vale.

Questions about this final progress report can be addressed to the Chairman at ajcedwards@aol.com.