Woking, Surrey 4th December 2013 - Gazetteer specialists Aligned Assets are pleased to announce both South Wales Police and Gwent Police as the latest customers of their AddressBase Premium compatible Symphony Bluelight corporate gazetteer management system.

South Wales Police is an established user of the Niche Records Management System and following a decision by Gwent Police to adopt the same system, ground-breaking work has been undertaken to create a single common Niche platform, hosted by South Wales Police, and accessible to both Forces.

An early requirement was for a common gazetteer service that underpinned the collaborative system and allowed migration to Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase Premium product – the UK’s most accurate and up to date address dataset. Through the use of Symphony Bluelight, the two Forces will both have access to AddressBase Premium and will be able to easily integrate it into both frontline and back office systems, including a dedicated web service into their collaborative Niche Records Management system.

The Symphony Bluelight Gazetteer, which sits at the heart of the system, will give the two Forces complete control over the address data they use. This will ensure that their address management processes, undertaken by Gwent Police's ICT collaborative provider, the Shared Resource Service, is not only structured and standardised, but also intuitive to use.

Populated with AddressBase Premium, the Symphony Bluelight Gazetteer will enable them to quickly import updates to this dataset, as well as build upon it with ‘local records’ such as motorway marker posts and other non-addressable locations.  Each record can then be extended using Aligned Assets’ new Xtended Data Module (XDM) Police Template, which allows each property record to be appended with information such as the presence of a gun license, as well as bringing GIS layers into the gazetteer, so that each record can be enhanced with information such as the associated police beat.

Data integration will be achieved via Symphony Bluelight iExchange and Symphony SinglePoint, both of which are designed to enable all people, departments and systems within an organisation to access and use the address data from the shared, corporate gazetteer.

Through these products, the two Forces have the option to give access to the gazetteer via the SinglePoint web services, which is the preferred option of Niche, and also automated updates through iExchange, which is ideal for systems such as command and control that require an additional level of resilience.

In addition to the corporate gazetteer system, South Wales and Gwent Police have also purchased Aligned Assets’ business database, which will complement AddressBase Premium by providing information on the names of business premises i.e. the sign above the door.

Speaking of the new system, Martin Smedley, Assistant Director of Information Services at South Wales Police said, “After identifying the requirement for a corporate gazetteer management system, we studied the market and the software available from Aligned Assets was the clear industry leader.”

“They were the only company that could fulfil our requirements and we have been highly impressed with both the software and support services.”

To find out more, visit www.aligned-assets.co.uk/bluelight

ABOUT ALIGNED ASSETS
Aligned Assets are an industry leader in AddressBase, gazetteer and address management solutions.  They supply software across the public and private sectors including over 100 Local Authorities, Fire & Rescue Services and Police Forces.  In addition to software and data solutions, they offer a complete range of consultancy, training, bespoke development and project management.