Geographic Information Survey 2009

The Geographic Information Survey was conducted by the Local Government Association’s Analysis and Research team for the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA), the Local Government Association (LGA), and the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA).

The purpose of the survey was to gain a full picture of the current provision of Geographic Information (GI) Services by local authorities and other local government organisations in England and Wales, and the results will inform the IDeA / LGA / WLGA’s strategic vision to support local authorities to improve GI services and help in specifying future requirements of the Mapping Service Agreement (MSA). The survey was sent to all 488 signatories to the MSA and received responses from 255 (52 per cent).

Some of the main findings are summarised below:

Current level of service

• The GI service was organised corporately in 72 per cent of respondent authorities, and it was most commonly provided by the ICT department (61 per cent).
• The main incentive for providing a GI service was more efficient sharing of data (78 per cent), and the main obstacle was a lack of resources (80 per cent).

Technical capability

• 51 per cent of respondents linked all or most of their data to a core reference geography, and 80 per cent collected data to national standards.
• 38 per cent of respondents anticipated meeting INSPIRE’s requirements through the authority’s website, 37 per cent were unable to say, and 31 per cent anticipated using a national publishing service.

Partnership working

• In 39 per cent of respondent authorities the GI service was currently involved in partnership working, most commonly as part of a community safety partnership (41 per cent), a local strategic partnership (37 per cent) or a local area agreement (34 per cent).
• The main perceived barriers to partnership working were licensing (52 per cent), cultural/organisational barriers (43 per cent), and funding (42 per cent).

Geographic Information Survey 2009 (PDF, 17 pages, 171KB)

End date: December 2009

Contact: stephen.richards@lga.gov.uk

Telephone: 020 7664 3256