Objective
By necessity the Strategy contains much detail and many technical terms so this document aims, on one side of A4, to put into plain english at a very high level the issues outlined in the strategy and highlight the need for and benefits arising from having an agreed GIS Development Strategy and associated action plan in place.

Detail
A GIS is a computer system that stores, processes and displays maps and can hold information against map features, whether they be part of original map, eg the A1 road or defined by the user, eg a piece of land earmarked for local development. Words, photographs or drawings can be used to describe map features. For example, TPOs can be stored against a map position, together with a photograph of the tree so providing easy reference should there be any accusations of branch removal etc at a future date.

Over 80% of local authority data is land or property related. The benefits of a GIS to pinpoint the location of land or property are obvious. A picture paints a thousand words, especially in rural areas where the location of land and property can sometimes only be described using words such as "near or adjacent to" a more prominent landmark. The problem is compounded when the information is held in several computer systems, potentially each with a different description.

In August 2000, the council acquired 5 GIS Licences for map viewing and printing. This proved, as expected, to be a vast improvement over the paper-based maps previously used.

The demands of the e-government, to provide joined up services require the councils information systems to be linked together in such a way so that the same piece of land or property unit can be identified. The easiest way to achieve this is through a GIS, as no matter how the land or property is described in words it should always have the same map reference.

GIS is the visual representation of the glue that can link all the land and property units within the different information systems together.

Because of e-government, the development of GIS can not be looked at in isolation. Therefore the strategy in addition to reviewing the available GIS software, and the merits of the different map formats, looks at the requirement for a gazetteer management system (GMS). A GMS is a database which records authority-wide land and property addressing details and the names of other computer systems that hold information about that piece of land or property. A GMS is fundamental if the council is to provide an efficient system for responding to a single notification of a change of address and updating all computer systems at that time, so the public do not have to tell the council umpteen different times that they have moved.

The council does not yet have computerised planning, building control, environmental services and land charges systems. Given that these systems would require additional GIS capability to be used effectively, the procurement of these systems has also been mentioned. The procurement of these systems is to be addressed at the first budget review.

An action plan detailing activities required to support the implementation of the strategy is outlined.

The strategy will be reviewed annually to ensure it continues to support the council's needs and meets requirements of the modernising agenda.