WYRE Forest District Council’s data management officer has picked up a double award for the second year running.

Mark Tipper, business improvement officer for data management and transformation, has won the best in region award and a gold award for address data from Exemplar.

The awards are designed to recognise projects which make a difference to the community and demonstrate to others the value of the information that local authorities manage on a day-to-day-basis.

Mr Tipper said: "All district and metropolitan councils are required to create and maintain a property gazetteer. This is a listing of all properties in the area but with lots of additional information and in a set format.

"There are literally hundreds of checks continually made on the data and each authority is graded monthly to measure performance and set targets for improvement. There are five categories or standards, the highest of which is gold.

"In order to gain an annual award for gold standard an authority needs to meet the monthly gold standard for at least six consecutive months. We underwent further checks and came out the best authority in the region for the second consecutive year.

"I’m delighted as this is a large part of my job and it’s reassuring to know that my work has been externally scrutinised and meets such a high standard.

"The council uses the gazetteer to deliver a range of services but it is also marketed nationally by Ordnance Survey and used increasingly by the public and private sectors, as it’s the definitive address database in England and Wales.

"It is important that we do our utmost to maintain the data to the highest standards for all users of the data, which includes the emergency services.

"Increasingly, central Government and its agencies are adopting the gazetteer within their systems. We’ve just gone through a process with the elections team and the Department for Work and Pensions, where the gazetteer has been pivotal in matching the data for individual electoral registration.

"This is the real strength of the gazetteer, as over 90 per cent of services are address based. It’s common sense to have one consistent database used by all."

Ian Miller, chief executive of Wyre Forest District Council, said: “Congratulations to Mark on this excellent achievement, which reflects the importance of managing accurate data and the impact it has on the council’s business.

"This aspect of our work is often overlooked or taken for granted so it is right that important operational activity is highlighted in this way. We are proud of these awards and that Mark has been recognised for the second year running for his highly professional approach.”