As part of its ongoing e-Government strategy, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council has chosen the Symphony Suite of software products from Aligned Assets to better manage and distribute its Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) . Addressing plays a crucial part in the delivery of council services linking back and front office systems and facilitating the publishing of community information via the authority's public facing website.

Central to this is Symphony Gazetteer, which allows the Corporate Data Mapping Services Team to manage the Council's single central BS7666 compliant gazetteer. Wakefield is using other products in the Symphony Suite including iPublish, used to publish a copy of the live gazetteer to an Oracle database. This Oracle held copy is then made available for integration with other Council systems that require address information. Finally iExchange, which at Wakefield is used to publish change only updates from the live gazetteer to other systems that require address information but cannot access the Oracle version. iExchange can be set up to e-mail recipients about additions, modifications and deletions of address records made within the Symphony Gazetteer. It can also utilise XML, Postal Address Format or DTF 6.5 to update LLPG data held in external systems.

Wakefield is unique among local authorities because it recognised the benefits of a centralised database of land and property back in 1990 long before BS7666 was conceived. Wakefield now has one of the most comprehensive Local Authority land and property databases in the country. Having begun the data capture process in 1991 and gone through the pain of BS7666 compliance the authority is now well versed in the minutiae of day to day maintenance and distribution of this valuable central resource.