PART 3 The Case Studies ©2004 by CRC Press LLC CHAPTER 8 Introduction to the Case Studies KEY QUESTIONS AND ISSUES • What is the purpose of the case studies in this book? • How have the case study authorities been selected? • What styles and applications of GIM are covered by the case studies? • How has the information for each case study been organized and presented? • How can I read and use the case studies depending on my background and interests? 8.1 WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CASE STUDIES IN THIS BOOK? The previous chapters have looked at the background of GIM, the principles that underpin its application, and the key areas of use within local government. Part 3 of this book contains nine detailed case studies of how individual local authorities have put GIM into practice. The main purpose of the case studies is to: • Provide specific examples of how GIM has actually been applied in a local authority setting, an environment where ideals frequently have to be tempered by the reality of political priorities, style, and culture, and restrictions on resources • Look at GIM in use (“warts and all”) from a viewpoint that will be directly familiar to the many readers likely to be working in local government • Ensure that the theory of GIM is firmly rooted in practice • Provide grounds for optimism by highlighting that it is possible to achieve consid- erable success with GIM by a wide variety of routes, despite the path not being easy • Explore the many human and organizational factors that are key contributors to success and are generally more important to understand than the technical issues • Enable the lessons from past experiences to be learned to the advantages of other local authorities who will invest their time, money, and other resources in GIM in the future ©2004 by CRC Press LLC 8.2 HOW HAVE THE CASE STUDY AUTHORITIES BEEN SELECTED? The case studies have been selected in order to present a mixed bag of examples of GIM in practice that: • Cover each of the types (except English shire counties and Scottish unitary coun- cils) of local authority • English Unitary Council (Bristol City and Southampton City) • Metropolitan Borough (Leeds City and Newcastle City) • English District Council (Aylesbury Vale and Shepway) • London Borough (Enfield and Harrow) • Welsh Unitary Council (Powys) • Cover the range of styles and applications or are important in terms of the history of GIM implementation in local government • Are distinctive in each case in terms of their approach to GIM • Offer important lessons to other local authorities 8.3 WHAT STYLES AND APPLICATIONS OF GIM ARE COVERED BY THE CASE STUDIES? A wide variety of styles and applications of GIM are covered by the case studies. As Table 8.1 shows, the case studies include examples of: • Each type (except for English shire counties and Scottish unitary councils) of local authority (as identified in Section 8.2) • The full size range of local authorities from typical districts (e.g., Shepway at 100,000; Aylesbury Vale at 165,000) up to large cities (e.g., Leeds at 715,000; Bristol at 400,000) • Different states of operation of GIS, from those with a strict single supplier policy (such as Newcastle City, Aylesbury Vale, and Powys) to those with a more relaxed approach that allows several GIS products to coexist side-by-side (such as Bristol City, Leeds City, Shepway, Enfield, and Harrow) • The main market leaders in terms of GIS suppliers • Different styles of GIS implementation, from those with a strong corporate approach (such as Bristol City, Newcastle City, Aylesbury Vale, Shepway, and Powys) to those whose approach has been departmental (such as Southampton City and Harrow) • A range of claims to distinction from pioneers (such as Bristol City with the National Land and Property Gazetteer, Leeds City with LAMIS, Shepway with Web-based GIS) to grassroots authorities (such as Southampton City and Harrow) and those that have used “killer” applications to get things moving (such as Southampton City with education, Newcastle City with Envirocall, and Harrow with drug misuse and crime and disorder) • A wide variety of focus services and policy areas for GIS application ©2004 by CRC Press LLC Table 8.1 Overview of the Case Studies Chapter Number (Page Number) Local Authority Local Authority Type Population Current State of Operation of GIS Main GIS Supplier(s) Style of GIS Implementation What Makes This Case Study Distinctive? Focus Services and Policy Areas for GIS Application 9 (115) Bristol City Council English Unitary Council 400,600 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS ESRI MapInfo FastMap Corporate Pilot authority for the National Land and Property Gazetteer that put BS7666 into practice for the National Land Information Service (NLIS) Land and Property Gazetteer Local land charges Council-owned property 10 (129) Southampton City Council English Unitary Council 216,000 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS MapInfo Intergraph Departmental Grassroots approach to GIS, which has been very successfully in the absence of a strong corporate framework Very wide range of services, with education as the initial “killer” application for use as a showcase to others 11 (139) Leeds City Council Metropolitan Borough 715,400 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS ESRI MapInfo GGP Semi-corporate Pioneering authority for ICL’s LAMIS system in the 1970s before disillusionment with large corporate projects set in. Reconceived its approach to GIS from the 1990s Land terrier Local land charges Planning Highways 12 (149) Newcastle City Council Metropolitan Borough 270,000 Single- supplier/ authority-wide GIS ESRI Corporate Strong corporate approach together with development of Envirocall (customer relations management) as the “killer” application for use as a demonstrator Customer relations management Local land charges Planning Grounds Highways Crime and disorder Council-owned property ©2004 by CRC Press LLC Table 8.1 Overview of the Case Studies (Continued) Chapter Number (Page Number) Local Authority Local Authority Type Population Current State of Operation of GIS Main GIS Supplier(s) Style of GIS Implementation What Makes This Case Study Distinctive? Focus Services and Policy Areas for GIS Application 13 (159) Aylesbury Vale District Council English District Council 165,000 Single-supplier/ authority-wide GIS ESRI Corporate Strong corporate approach to implementation of GIS Local land charges Planning Council-owned property 14 (167) Shepway District Council English District Council 100,000 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS ESRI Autodesk Corporate One of the first local authorities to implement Web-based GIS within the framework of a strong corporate approach Planning Building control Environmental health Local land charges Shoreline management Deprivation 15 (175) London Borough of Enfield London Borough 265,000 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS Sysdeco/ICL Now replaced by MapInfo Semi-corporate First local authority to capture its addresses and property data to BS7666 standards. Has achieved extensive implementation of GIS despite the lack of a fully corporate approach Land and Property Gazetteer Planning Local land charges Council-owned property Environmental health 16 (183) London Borough of Harrow London Borough 220,000 Multi-supplier/ authority-wide GIS GGP SIA MapInfo Departmental Bottom-up approach to introducing GIS without a corporate approach based on the burning political issues of drugs misuse and crime and disorder Drug misuse Crime and disorder Deprivation 17 (191) Powys County Council Welsh Unitary Council 126,000 Single-supplier/ authority-wide GIS MapInfo Corporate Very strong corporate approach and early recognition that spatial data about disparate locations is critical to a county with an area of 2,000 mi 2 Education Planning Local land charges Highways Countryside access ©2004 by CRC Press LLC 8.4 HOW HAS THE INFORMATION FOR EACH CASE STUDY BEEN ORGANIZED AND PRESENTED? To make things easy and comparable, each case study has been written to a standard format that answers the “Case Study Questions and Issues” that are set out in Box 8.1. Each case study includes, at the start, an “At a Glance” summary that enables the key facts about the local authority to be rapidly assimilated in order to assist the user in identifying those case studies that are of greatest interest and to act as an aide memoir after reading. In terms of the current state of operation of GIS, the following six-way classi- fication was devised in advance of the case studies in order to denote whether the authority had adopted a single-supplier or multi-supplier approach to GIS and to denote how widespread the application of GIS is within the authority: 1. Single-Supplier/Authority-Wide GIS Only one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within over four departments Authorities covered in the case studies: Aylesbury Vale, Newcastle City 2. Multi-Supplier/Authority-Wide GIS More than one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within over four departments Authorities covered in the case studies: Bristol City, Enfield, Harrow, Leeds City, Shepway, Southampton 3. Single-Supplier/Multi-Departmental GIS Only one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within only two or three depart- ments Authorities covered in the case studies: Powys 4. Multi-Supplier/Multi-Departmental GIS More than one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within only two or three departments Authorities covered in the case studies: none* Box 8.1 Case Study Questions and Issues • Why was the authority chosen as a case study? • The background: What has the authority done? • What organization has it set up? • What does it plan to do in the future? • What were the positive drivers and success factors for implementing GIS? • What were the negative factors that threatened success? • What have been the practical benefits? • What are the lessons for others? * It should be noted that within the case studies we did not attempt to select examples of each of these categories in advance, having placed greatest importance upon identifying local authorities that are distinctive in some respect with regard to their implementation of GIS. The classification scheme was therefore employed after the selection had been determined, as part of our approach to analysis. As our selection process was inherently biased towards local authorities that showed significant activity on GIS and had something to offer it was not perhaps surprising that there are no examples of the last three categories in the classification scheme within the case studies. ©2004 by CRC Press LLC 5. Single-Supplier/Single Department GIS Only one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within only one department Authorities covered in the case studies: none* 6. Multi-Supplier/Single Department GIS More than one GIS supplier’s product(s) operational within only one department Authorities covered in the case studies: none* We have deliberately used the term authority-wide rather than corporate in this classification scheme as it better describes the extent of implementation of GIS in this context. However in Table 8.1 (where we have defined the style of GIS implementation or level of cross-department working) we have used the term corporate as this more appropriately identifies where there is authority-wide com- mitment to GIS (which may be evident from the existence of a corporate GIS strategy or establishment of a GIS steering group to coordinate implementation and operation). 8.5 HOW CAN I READ AND USE THE CASE STUDIES, DEPENDING ON MY BACKGROUND AND INTERESTS? There are a number of different ways that the case studies can be read, depending on the reader’s background and interests: • In full and in sequence, which is the recommended approach if the reader has time, because this takes advantage of all the material and the order in which we have placed them to best “tell the tale” • By being selective when the reader has limited time or wants to dip into the case studies for specific experiences, lessons, and information that are relevant to his or her background, viewpoint, work experience, organization or a pressing prob- lem, e.g., by: •UsingTable 8.1 to identify relevant case studies, and then reading these initially, reviewing, and if appropriate reading further case studies • Identifying those “Case Study Questions and Issues” (Box 8.1) that are of direct interest, and then focusing upon reading the appropriate sections of the relevant case studies Above all, when reading the case studies, it is suggested that the reader adopt a critical questioning approach in relation to the material presented by continually asking: • What does this tell me that is new in terms of my knowledge of GIS and how it might be successfully put into practice? • How does this reinforce or conflict with what I have learned from earlier sections of this book? • How does this compare with my own experience of GIS and the organizations that I have worked within that have implemented GIS? • Would this approach have worked better than the approach my organization has adopted so far? ©2004 by CRC Press LLC • What experience and lessons are most relevant to me and the organization that I am currently working in? • How can I help my organization to improve, based upon what I have learned? We have spent a lot of time selecting the case study authorities and analyzing and presenting the material about them. We hope that you will enjoy reading this section of the book. ©2004 by CRC Press LLC . important in terms of the history of GIM implementation in local government • Are distinctive in each case in terms of their approach to GIM • Offer important lessons to other local authorities 8. 3. viewpoint, work experience, organization or a pressing prob- lem, e.g., by: •UsingTable 8. 1 to identify relevant case studies, and then reading these initially, reviewing, and if appropriate reading. the first local authorities to implement Web-based GIS within the framework of a strong corporate approach Planning Building control Environmental health Local land charges Shoreline management Deprivation 15 (175) London