Corporate report

Geospatial Commission Board of Commissioners' Meeting,24 April 2023

Published 21 July 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Geospatial Commission Board of Commissioners’ Meeting 26,

24 April 2023

Geovation Hub, F4, Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7EN/MS Teams

10:30-16:00

Attendees

Commissioners

Bernard Silverman (Chair)
Nigel Clifford (Deputy Chair)
Thalia Baldwin
Louise Heathwaite
Steve Unger
Alex Notay

Nominated Commissioners

Peter Sparkes
David Henderson (for Stephen Lake)

Commission Unit

Catherine Carter-McGrath
Chris Chambers
Jamie Clark
Joe Cuddeford
Ros Goodfellow
(Minutes by: Liz Conn)

Observers

Felicity Rollings (for Alan Corbett) (Scotland, online)
Glyn Jones (Wales, online)
Suzanne McLaughlin (Northern Ireland, online)

Apologies

Stephen Lake
Alan Corbett

1. Minutes and Matters Arising

1.1. Bernard opened the meeting, thanking the board and speakers for joining this full day meeting in person. He outlined the agenda for the day, which includes deep dive sessions on Property and Land Use, with guest speakers and experts from both the Commission’s Partner Bodies and related industry.

1.2. Apologies were given for Stephen Lake and Alan Corbett. The board welcomed David Henderson (for Stephen) and Felicity Rollings (for Alan). The board also formally welcomed Suzanne McLaughlin, who has permanently replaced Jim Lennon as the representative observer for Northern Ireland.

1.3. The January board meeting minutes were approved with no changes. No other matters were noted.

2. Report from the Nominated Commissioners

2.1. Peter Sparkes summarised the points raised by the Partner Bodies at the Nominated Commissioners’ meeting on 19 April:

• The Partner Bodies are supportive of the draft Property paper and believe the work will be crucial for each organisation, as well as relevant for the wider economy. There was agreement that the Commission can support value in this space by highlighting the benefits of an integrated data approach.
• The Property work aligns well with BGS’s newly launched Strategy 2023-2028 which highlights the need for better data to inform spatial planning and prioritisation.
• The Partner Bodies emphasised the growing need for integrated geospatial infrastructure as this creates a fundamental framework for the wide field of data initiatives.

3. Report from the Director of the Commission

3.1. Thalia provided an update on activities and highlights from across the Commission since the January  board meeting, which included:

• the successful renegotiation on behalf of government of a five year deal with Royal Mail for access to the Postcode Address File (PAF) providing the public sector with ongoing access to critical address information. This has required significant GC time, effort and expertise to finalise;
• the formal announcement of the launch of a commercial Earth Observation pilot for up to 35 UK public sector bodies that will help to unlock the value of EO technology in priority policy areas, from emergency incident response to land use. The pilot will fit in with wider programme of EO activity in government;
• the launch of a skills pilot for 24 government geographers delivered by ONS to upskill and increase diversity within the geospatial data science public sector community.
• significant progress towards the publication of the report Finding Common Ground (due out in May) which is the culmination of 18 months of work in the National Land Data Programme and has involved a number of government departments;
• continued work on the UK’s Geospatial Strategy 2030. The latest version has been circulated to the Partner Bodies for review, with an intended publication date of mid June;
• the Commission’s transition into the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Good progress is being made, although the full transformation will take several months.

4. Property Deep Dive

4.1. The board welcomed Mike Harlow (Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Customer and Strategy, HM Land Registry), Heather Whicker (Director of Information, Data & Analysis, Valuation Office Agency) and Lawrence Lawrence Hopper (Deputy Director for Digital Policy, Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities) to the meeting.

4.2. Alex Notay introduced the deep dive session, outlining the GC’s project in the property space over the past year, and its aims to publish a Property policy paper this summer. The paper, a draft of which was shared ahead of the board meeting, highlights opportunity areas where location data, services and applications can unlock opportunities across the property ecosystem. Alex has chaired a series of round table discussions over the last six months which have fostered collaboration across the sector and surfaced insights to help inform the Commission’s work.

Public Sector Innovation Session:

4.3. Mike Harlow presented on HM Land Registry’s data transformation to support the wider property market including the Local Land Charges programme. HMLR is currently working with the property market to consider other data sets (such as CON29) that could also be digitised to support an intelligent property market.

4.4 Heather Whicker presented on the VOA’s data transformation programme, which aims to map to Unique Property Reference Numbers when new addresses are created. She also outlined proposals to broaden access to non sensitive property attribute VOA data through legislation, as well as the work the VOA is doing to support cross-government use of their data.

4.5. A discussion was held around public sector progress in this area, as well as barriers, particularly around interoperability of property data and how that might be overcome.

Private Sector Innovation Session:

4.6. The board welcomed Will Pearce (Co-Founder and CEO, Orbital Witness), Dr Chlump Chatkupt (Founder and CEO, Placemake.io) and Mark Cunningham (Co-Founder & Director, Whenfresh). They each presented on the work of their organisations and how location data, services and applications are driving innovation across the property sector.

4.7. A discussion was held on the biggest geospatial data related opportunities and barriers to innovation across the property ecosystem.

4.8. The board thanked the speakers for the very interesting presentations. The Commission will continue to engage with both public and private sector organisations to ensure it has an informed view as work in this area progresses.

5. Land Use Deep Dive

5.1. Bernard welcomed Ben Taylor and Amy Wilson from the government’s Open Innovation Team (the Commission’s partner for the Land Use Dialogues programme), Emma Warneford and Kathy Verlander (Newcastle City Council Planning Team), Dani Arribas-Bel (Deputy Director of Urban Analytics, Alan Turing Institute and Professor in Geographic Data Science at the Department of Geography and Planning of the University of Liverpool), Sue Pritchard (CEO, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission) and Vicente Macia-Kjaer (Programme Coordinator, FFCC) to the meeting.

5.2. Joe Cuddeford introduced the deep dive session, which is in two parts: a showcase from National Land Data Programme (NLDP) pilot partners, followed by a discussion on the draft report and plans for its publication. Joe thanked Alex Notay and Louise Heathwaite for their significant contributions to the Programme. He also thanked the key partners who were unable to join the meeting: OS Northern Ireland, BGS, Ordnance Survey, Vizzuality, Defra and DLUHC.

Pilot Partner Showcase:

5.3. Ben presented on the Land Use Dialogues, the focus of which has been energy, housing and water security. He highlighted that the UK faces many cross-sectoral land use challenges, which will grow more acute in coming decades, and the need for a more integrated and coordinated approach to land use analysis.

5.4. Emma, Kathy and Dani gave an overview of the Newcastle pilot and the development of the interactive land use demonstrator tool.

5.5. Sue and Vicente from FFCC presented on the Devon and Cambridgeshire pilots. Joe thanked FFCC for supporting the Commission’s work and for the partnership that has been established.

5.6. There was a discussion around how a move to a visual representation of plans would be a great improvement, particularly linking maps to planning applications so they can be presented and reviewed in an easier, more evidence-led way. The importance of working collaboratively across the UK, with one standardised taxonomy, rather than in silos was also discussed. The pilots have demonstrated that digital tools can help cities and towns address future challenges and present growth scenarios for the future more easily, saving time and optimising land use. The board recognised the need for any land use framework to be backed by senior institutional leadership.

Overview of NLDP Report, Recommendations & Launch Plan:

5.7. Mehul Doshi provided an update on feedback received during the National Land Data Programme to date. He thanked all involved for their input and help shaping and crafting both the programme itself and the content of the report. He added that the team had appreciated the strong level of engagement from central government departments such as Defra, DLUHC and DESNZ.

5.8. The government is concerned with the finite nature of land and this Programme tests how innovative data solutions and a review of the policy landscape could help. The creation of a Land Use Task Force is one of a number of recommendations put forward in the report.

5.9. The board thanked all the speakers and others involved for their considerable contributions to the programme and for the interesting presentations and agreed to consider and keep in touch about potential future areas for collaboration to take this important work forward. The board also formally recorded its thanks to Joe Cuddeford who is leaving the Commission in May.

6. NUAR Update

6.1. Chris Chambers provided an update on the National Underground Asset Register. The minimum viable product (MVP) has been successfully launched, and received much positive press, including in the national media, and gained good traction, reaching over 40 trade publications. Reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

6.3. Next steps are:

• Onboarding the remaining asset owners in MVP regions;
• Onboarding 400+ asset owners across remainder of England and Northern Ireland
• Ensuring data is current
• Determining, communicating and implementing NUAR’s future model.

6.4. The board congratulated Chris and the NUAR team on their success and particularly on the mainstream media coverage which is rare for such a technical subject.

7. Any Other Business & Closing Remarks

7.1. Bernard summarised the day, remarking upon the opportunities arising from having experts join the discussions, which will have led to a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, as well as opening up avenues for future collaboration.

7.2. The board wished to formally record their thanks all involved for the very useful and thought provoking conversations and deep dives.