Why we should capture good quality addresses at source

Addresses: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The impact of poor-quality addresses

• Returned mail.

• Potential to remove customer access to goods or services.

• Delays to the delivery of goods and services.

• Affects organisational efficiency.

• Creates bottlenecks.

• Creates flawed insights.

• Reduces confidence.

• Negatively impacts system implementation and migration.

• GDPR – Data breaches.

• Results in costly expenses.

What makes a good quality address?

• Complete (House Name / Number, Road Name & Postcode).

  Contains all the information required to find the property or post a letter to.

• Validated.

  It’s been through a quality control process.

• Up to date.

  It’s current.

• Links to a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN).

  Enables linking to other datasets.

• Contains co-ordinates. Provides a geographical locator.

How to capture a good quality address?

An address lookup lets users specify a UK address by entering their postcode and selecting a valid address from a list.

It could also be configured to enter a street name or number.

In the background this can be configured to take advantage of the UPRN and other associated attribution depending on data source.

Considerations

When a need to capture addressing occurs the following questions should be considered:

Sources of a good quality address

• Your Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG), if you have one

• AddressBase

• AddressBase Core

• AddressBase Plus

• AddressBase Premium

• OS Places API

• Other commercially available address products

Benefits of capturing a good quality address

• Consistency

• Enables the linking of disparate data

• Significant reduction in human error

• Time saving by reducing the need for address matching

• Increased efficiency through automation

• Reduce fraud

• Easier to share data with external organisations/partners

• Adheres to Government Digital Service style guide

Capture It Right, Once – Always Right!

This content has been developed from what was originally a Lightning Talk PowerPoint slide set. These slides are available to PSGA members to view and download from the PSGA members area of the OS website