Improving the Business Registry at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham successfully use the 118 Business Names dataset provided by Aligned Assets to improve their registry of businesses within their authority.

Richard Zurawik Land & Property Information Group Manager commented “the 118 business names data is the best source of business names and addresses we have”. The Borough cross refers the list against their current LLPG to identify discrepancies. These are then followed up, with improvements made to the LLPG where relevant.

Receiving a regular electronic batch of business names pre-matched against UPRNs is a significant improvement on the old way of trying the keep business names up to date, which involved hiring temporary staff to “walk the streets”.

As well as the benefit of keeping their NNDR records up to date, the Regeneration and Economic development within the borough has also benefited. The reduced wastage in their mailshots was significant after the improvement to accuracy made possible by using the 118 Business Names.

For those who are interested in this data set, this is supplied on a monthly basis by Aligned Assets. This can be taken as a full file or change only update. Aligned Assets will pre-match this against your LLPG. 118 Data systems verify each business record at least once a year through their large call centre. Scenarios that can be unearthed include:

• A new business that does not exist in the LLPG – This has implications for NNDR and possible increased revenue.
• A change in usage of a premises – This has implications for NNDR and possible increased revenue as well as licensing.
• Instances where the business is not using the official address allocated by yourselves. This may lead to you trying to enforce the usage of the correct address or creating an alternate address – This has implications for other departments with the council and also receiving authorities such as the emergency services where confusion around the address can be serious.
• Inconsistencies or inaccuracies in the business name allocated in the LLPG – The implications are similar to what is described above.