GIS & Data Maturity Audit
Assess current systems, data interoperability, and skills gaps against the government's digital priorities. A clear baseline before committing to a platform or a migration.
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Local authorities and public sector
Siloed departments running on legacy systems that were never built to share data, with reorganisation adding pressure rather than removing it.
National building intelligence platform standardising data from 317 local planning authorities
Local Digital Twin Scoping
Plan a map-based service combining planning, flood risk, and development data in one interface. Scoped around one service area first, not a platform-wide commitment.
See how we standardised data from 317 local planning authorities →Reorganisation Data Migration Support
Sequenced migration planning for councils merging systems under Local Government Reorganisation. Sensitive records move with an audit trail, not a big-bang cutover.
One scoping call is enough to discuss any of these. Free, no obligation.
Why are council systems so fragmented?
Local authorities are running planning, housing, transport, and social care on separate systems that were never built to talk to each other. The Local Government Association's own State of Digital Government report names this directly: legacy vendor lock-in, GIS skills shortages, and funding that favours new projects over maintaining what already exists. None of that is unique to one council. It's the default state most authorities inherited.
Local Government Reorganisation is adding pressure rather than removing it. In Essex, five district and county councils are merging into five new unitary authorities, each inheriting planning, housing, and licensing systems that were never designed to merge. The reorganisation proposal itself states that digital and data maturity levels across the merging authorities "will vary", a polite way of saying nobody yet knows how well the pieces will fit together.
The reorganisation proposal itself admits that digital maturity “will vary” across the merging authorities. That's not a footnote. That's the project.
Where GIS fits
The government's Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government sets out six priorities, with joined-up services, AI adoption, and transparency chief among them. Geography is the practical mechanism for most of that. Anchoring housing, planning, transport, and environmental data to the same spatial reference lets departments that have never shared a system start working from one. Nottingham City Council's 3D planning tool is a working example of this in practice: conservation, flood, and development data in one interface, breaking down the planning-versus-environment silo that slows most applications down.
We scope this work the way it needs to be delivered inside a council budget cycle: fixed-price audits and scoping engagements, not open-ended consultancy. A maturity audit tells you where your data actually stands against the Blueprint's priorities. A digital twin scoping engagement plans the map-based service without committing you to a platform before you know what you need. Where reorganisation is merging systems, we help scope the data migration itself, sequenced so sensitive records, social care, housing, licensing, move with an audit trail.
Common questions
Can GIS help with Local Government Reorganisation data migration?
Yes. Merging councils means merging planning, housing, and licensing systems built on different data standards. GIS provides the common spatial reference that lets you audit what exists across the merging authorities and sequence which datasets migrate first, before committing to a single target platform.
What is a local digital twin and does my council need one?
A local digital twin is a map-based model that combines planning, flood risk, environmental, and development data into a single interface, letting planners and residents see how decisions affect a place. Not every council needs a full digital twin immediately. Most benefit from starting with a scoped pilot around one service area, such as planning or flood risk, before expanding.
How does GIS support the government's Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government?
The Blueprint's priorities, joined-up services, AI adoption, and transparency, depend on data that can be linked across departments. GIS anchors housing, planning, transport, and environmental datasets to the same geography, which is what makes joined-up services and AI-driven analysis possible in practice, not just in policy.
Do you work within local authority procurement frameworks?
We scope engagements as fixed-price audits and phased projects specifically because that fits how councils actually budget and procure. Get in touch to discuss what framework or procurement route you need us to work within.
Not everything fits a package
Day rates by type of work. Scoping calls are free. If the project maps to a package, we quote the package. If not, we scope in phases so you know what you're committing to before anything starts.
- Advisory and strategic Scoping, data strategy, migration planning, governance design.£900–£1,400/day
- Technical delivery Platform configuration, PostGIS database build, web app and dashboard build.£650–£850/day
- Data processing Large-scale dataset processing and constraint data assembly. Quoted per project.Fixed price
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Start with a conversation
A one-hour call gets us from "we're not sure where to start" to a clear scope. Free, no obligation.