Calderdale Council - Enhancing customer service with the power of GIS

Calderdale Council is harnessing the potential of geographic information

Calderdale Council holds and manages a significant amount of information about the area, in order to provide an efficient end useful service to its citizens.

When local residents contact Calderdale Council’s Contact Centre, their enquiries are usually geographically-based. They might be reporting problems experienced with local facilities – or simply asking questions about the area they live in.

Improving the service it provides to citizens – and giving them accurate, timely advice – is a high priority for Calderdale Council. In recent years, it has invested considerably in geographic information from Ordnance Survey and the software to support it.

Its aim is to hold its data centrally – for use across the organisation. By using a central hub to lever a single source to many users, the council is revolutionising the extent that its GIS is used. And with data from this central resource, its GIS team has developed a system to run in its Contact Centre – giving instant access to staff dealing with enquiries. At the heart of the project is Ordnance Survey’s flagship data product OS MasterMap.

OS MasterMap includes highly detailed and intelligent data available in a series of high precision themes and layers – Topography, Addressing, Imagery and Integrated Transport Network – for any area or activity defined by the customer. Across Great Britain, OS MasterMap includes more than half a billion unique feature identifiers and is designed to be managed as a fully integrated database offering benefits to customers through cost and efficiency savings and improved analytical and decision-making capabilities.

In addition to improving its service to the citizen, the ability to process spatial information quickly and for it to be viewed on-screen is crucial to the council’s plans for improved efficiency. Contact Centre staff are able to deal with enquiries there-and-then – without the need to refer questions to back room colleagues. This also reduces any inconvenience for callers who would otherwise have to wait for an operative to call them back.

A wide range of data

The Mapping Services Agreement (MSA), between Ordnance Survey and Local Authorities, recognises the importance of GIS in support of council services. As well as OS MasterMap, the council has called upon OS Street View – smaller scale data showing streets in relation to each other – and PointX data. The points of interest information within PointX – highlighting local commercial landmarks – is a vital tool allowing Contact Centre staff to pinpoint specific locations such as public houses and bus stops and stations.

"The range of data available to us under the MSA allowed us to give users access to scale mapping relevant to the project requirement. OS MasterMap provides a scale and clarity that allows the user to interact with confidence. Features can be distinguished due to topographic colouring, and small features such as posts are included.

"Local Authorities are looking evermore to engage the citizen and improve service. By using OS data and GIS capabilities we are able to give the Contact Centre tools to improve the interaction with the customer." – Craig Moulding, Calderdale Council.