Geographic Information Management in Local Government - Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10 Case Study — Southampton City Council SOUTHAMPTON CITY COUNCIL AT A GLANCE Key Facts Local authority name: Southampton City Council Local authority type: Unitary council Population: 216,000 Current state of operation of GIS: Multi-supplier/Authority-wide GIS Main GIS products in use: Intergraph Geomedia (10 data management/edit licenses plus Web browser access), which has recently been adopted as the corporate GIS. MapInfo Professional (98 licenses). Applications: Land charges, building control, development control, street lighting, envi-ronmental health, trading standards, city safety/crime reduction, school catchment area planning and “safe routes to schools,” child care, housing stock, contaminated land, and land terrier Land and Property Gazetteer status: CAPS uniform gazetteer that is BS7666 compliant GIM/GIS strategy status: No formal GIS strategy Forum for steering GIS: No GIS steering group but a “GIS User Movement” meets occasionally for briefings on current projects and new developments Staffing for GIS: IT section provides implementation and ongoing support and training Contact details: GIS business analyst (telephone 023 808 33092) What Makes Southampton City Council Distinctive? Southampton City Council is an admirable example of an authority that, typical of many, has adopted a grassroots approach to GIS. Its approach to implementing GIS has been ad-hoc and step-by-step, and has been led by user activity on specific projects of interest, which has taken place without the framework of a council-wide GIS strategy and without the direction and coordination of any GIS steering group (but with the support of users who banded together to form the Underground GIS User Movement). Despite the initial lack of any corporate approach, the council has been successful in the application of GIS, has a number of showcase projects, and the case study holds many lessons for those local authorities whose style and culture has encouraged departments to go it alone without the luxury of diverting time onto ©2004 by CRC Press LLC overall planning and coordination on an interdepartmental basis. Recently, a corpo-rate approach has begun to emerge with the adoption of Intergraph Geomedia as the corporate GIS. Key Stages in the Implementation of GIS Southampton City Council’s experience of GIS has taken place over three main phases: Stage 1 (1980s to early 1990s) — Piloting and rejection of IBM’s mainframe GFIS in the 1980s, followed by initial interest, then waning commitment to Intergraph’s Micros-tation in the early 1990s Stage 2 (1997 to 2000) — “Organic” emergence of GIS applications (based on MapInfo) that had sprung up independently “like a field of mushrooms” since the authority became a unitary Stage 3 (2000+) — Internet-enabling of applications and recent emergence of the corporate approach with choice of Intergraph Geomedia as the corporate GIS Positive Drivers and Success Factors for GIS • Individual officers in departments identified projects where GIS could provide sig-nificant benefits and implemented them without the red tape of large corporate projects and at low cost on desktop PCs. • In-house IT section (in computer and printing services department) provided a packaged GIS service at only £1,500 “one-off” cost per desktop PC (covering MapInfo software, training, GIS support, OS map-base/updates, and access to other department’s spatial data). • Widespread acknowledgment of success of GIS in education. Problems that Threatened Success • GIS has had to flourish through an “underground movement” as a consequence of the lack of senior management and corporate support. Practical Benefits from GIS • Availability of one up-to-date corporate map base and sharing of data across departments. • Self-contained benefits within each project in the form of improved efficiency and quality of decisions through the ability to exploit spatial aspects of data relating to clients and services. • Education became an outstanding example of what could be achieved at low cost. Use of GIS revealed the “looser” real-world catchments caused by exercising of parental choice and encouraged data sharing and the avoidance of duplication of effort that resulted from collaboration with the transportation division. ©2004 by CRC Press LLC 10.1 WHY WAS SOUTHAMPTON CITY COUNCIL CHOSEN AS A CASE STUDY? Southampton City Council was selected as a case study because it is typical of many local authorities. Despite a long history of experimentation with GIS, which started in the 1980s with piloting and rejection of IBM’s mainframe GFIS GIS and extended in the early 1990s into experimentation followed by waning interest in Intergraph’s Microstation, it is only since Southampton’s establishment as a unitary authority in 1997 that GIS has really taken off. Faced with the fact that its early attempts at using GIS had failed to establish a corporate approach, its more recent experience in GIS has deliberately been ad-hoc and step-by-step, and has been led by user activity on projects of interest that have sprung up “organically” in depart-ments, e.g., the use of GIS in education for catchment area planning and safe routes for schools, which has been a showcase project to the rest of the authority. These user-led projects have shown considerable success despite the absence of a council-wide GIS strategy or the direction and coordination of any GIS steering committee. Although a corporate GIS steering committee was briefly established on local gov-ernment reorganization in 1997, it folded through lack of support after only one meeting, to be replaced by the emergence of the GIS Underground User Movement that was established by the users as a basis for sharing experiences and discussing common issues and has been a key mechanism for getting GIS off the ground. Only recently has the council begun to regain its corporate approach with the widespread use of Intergraph Geomedia as the corporate GIS. The case study holds many lessons for those local authorities whose style and culture have encouraged departments to go it alone without the luxury of diverting time into overall planning and coordination on an interdepartmental basis. The case study shows the considerable success with GIS that can be achieved without a strong corporate approach. However, it also recognizes that the sharing of spatial data between departments can take place effectively only within the framework of cor-porate standards. This has resulted in GIS recently moving full circle with the emergence of a corporate approach to GIS within the council based upon the use of Intergraph Geomedia. 10.2 THE BACKGROUND — WHAT HAS SOUTHAMPTON CITY COUNCIL DONE? Southampton City Council is an example of the implementation of a multi-supplier/authority-wide GIS, using the terminology that we introduced in Chapter 8. Its experience of GIS since 1997 has focused initially on the introduction of software from MapInfo Corporation’s GIS portfolio, but recently Intergraph Geo-media has emerged as the corporate GIS. Currently, the following GIS software products are in use across the authority: • MapInfo Professional (98 licenses) is used across the authority, but note that although all data is accessed from a central GIS Novell server, it is not a corporate ©2004 by CRC Press LLC system as all licenses were purchased in ones and twos as required by individual projects. With the decision to use Intergraph Geomedia as the corporate GIS, no additional MapInfo licenses are being procured. • MapInfo MapXtreme Web server enabling more than 2000 users to access GIS via the intranet. • Integraph Geomedia (10 data management/edit licenses with widespread browser access throughout the council) was installed in the early 1990s for initial use for grounds maintenance contract and only recently has been selected as the corporate GIS. Within Southampton City Council, development and implementation of GIS has taken place over three major stages: Stage 1 (1980s to early 1990s) — This was a period of early experimentation with GIS. Starting with a brief flirtation with IBM’s mainframe GFIS GIS in the 1980s, which was piloted and rejected as unsuitable for corporate use, the council at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s committed itself to an Intergraph Microstation system. This was tested initially within the leisure services department for the preparation of grounds maintenance invitations-to-tender (for which the production of maps showing the boundaries of grounds had previously consumed much manual effort). Selected with the potential to become the corporate GIS, significant budgets were spent on Unix servers and workstations, training, and development, including the installation of further seats within the highways and transportation division. Rich in CAD, 3-D, and solid modeling functionality, the Intergraph Microstation proved to be a powerful tool in the hands of expert users, but overkill for typical local government users. According to Adnitt (1998), It was “over-complicated and difficult to use, the simplest tasks were awkward and cumbersome, the situation further aggravated by the fully trained expert user leaving to seek pastures new. Frustrated users, desperate for maps for operational support, resorted back to paper and coloured pencils, leaving the workstations to gather dust.” The result was the demise of the Intergraph Microstation, which continued to be used only within the leisure services department for the infrequent preparation of grounds maintenance contracts. Stage 2 (1997 to 2000) — With the creation of the unitary authority in 1997, GIS entered a new beginning. The cost of the OS copyright licenses under the Service Level Agreement (SLA) rose dramatically from £12,000 to £32,000 as a result of the increased size and responsibilities of the authority. At the outset, it was recog-nized as critical that as many potential users as possible were recruited to GIS, and a corporate GIS steering committee was established to encourage takeup and ensure proper control and coordination. Disappointingly, this group never met again after its inaugural meeting, with senior management representatives becoming preoccu-pied with reorganizing their divisions to cope with the new pressures upon them coupled with “a natural skepticism for all things corporate, especially IT!” The views of many at that time can be typified in the comment that “if there is a sure way to kill a project stone dead it is to give it the corporate label. For corporate read big, expensive, complex, too late to meet the business need and not what was requested in the first place. By the time the analysts have analysed, project managers managed ©2004 by CRC Press LLC and the methodology controlled, the business has moved on and the solution is designed for a problem which has changed or no longer exists” (Adnitt, 1998). It became clear that progress toward a corporate GIS was some way off, and in order to avoid total loss of momentum, the computing and printing section introduced a standard packaged service for the implementation of GIS based on MapInfo and covering for a one-off cost of £1,500 for each desktop PC: • MapInfo software, procurement and updates • Training • Support and consultancy • OS map distribution and updates • Access to corporate map server • Access to other departmental spatial data • CD-ROM distribution for stand-alone PCs • Services of the council’s Ordnance Survey liaison officer (OSLO) This “bargain offer” from an enlightened IT section has greatly encouraged the use of GIS, and with a single set of accurate up-to-date map data on the corporate network server, over 45 desktop PCs had signed up by the end of 1999 for the following applications that emerged “organically” in departments like a field of mushrooms: • Education and transportation — for schools catchment area planning and safe routes to schools initiative • Highways and street lighting – all 27,000 lighting columns, lights, illuminated signs, and bollards surveyed with data held in MapInfo interfaced to its Confirm (highways and street lighting) system from Southbank Systems • Public sewer records — supplied on CD from Southern Water and converted to MapInfo • Child care strategy — comparing service provision geographically with need • Planning, building control, trading standards, and environmental health — implementing portfolio of CAPS uniform systems linked to MapInfo • Housing — plotting locations of council housing stock in response to new Crime and Disorder Act Much of what stimulated the emergence of this list of GIS applications was the early selection of a showcase project that could be used as a demonstrator to other departments. The identification, implementation, and promotion of education as the initial “killer” application for GIS have underpinned the widespread expansion of GIS across departments. In 1997, the education department was looking to define a 5-year strategic plan for the provision of education, an important basis for which was the location of schools and school catchment area boundaries, for which a critical need was to know where pupils lived in relation to the schools they were attending. Every school was asked to supply the education department with a floppy disk containing the address of every pupil in its SIMS (school records) system. These were then grid-referenced by the IT section using OS ADDRESS-POINT data in order to create maps in MapInfo for the existing catchment areas. These maps immediately confirmed the effects of parents exercising their rights to choose their ©2004 by CRC Press LLC ... - tailieumienphi.vn