Rural Land Register

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Rural Land Register Rupert Waite Rural Payments
Agency Geographic Information Services 11 Feb 09

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Agenda

• Introductions
• What is the Rural Land Register
• Why Set up the Rural Land Register
• EU Regulations - Key Spatial Concepts in the
  Regulations
• Different types of reference parcel
• Digitisation and back ground maps
• Using Ordnance Survey Mastermap
• The Data Capture phase
• Where we are now The RLR Program.
• Questions

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What is the Rural Land Register

• The Rural Land Register (RLR) is Englands land
  parcel identification system (LPIS). A database
  and Geographic Information System (GIS) for
  registered rural land in England. - A regulation
  key control for IACS/SPS.
• The RLR is managed by Rural Payments Agency (RPA)
  as a corporate Shared Service across the Defra
  family. (SPS, Environmental Schemes, Forestry
  Schemes)
• The RLR holds 2.1million fields. 90 of rural
  land is mapped on the RLR
• 1.74 million fields have SPS entitlements
  activated against them.
• The data is managed with a web based GIS
  technology, an integral part of the RPA main
  integrated IT Application (RITA) for Single
  Payment Scheme.

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Why set up the Rural Land Register?

• To meet EU regulations, which required the use
  of GIS techniques in IACS subsidy scheme
  processing by 1 January 2005 - It was made
  operational in September 2004
• To modernise and streamline our approach to
  administering land based schemes by making use of
  GIS technology
• To support the validation of IACS and Rural
  Development Program claims and provide
  information for field inspectors
• The Rural Land Register is an integral part of
  Defra overall GI strategy.

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European Regulatory Requirements
RLR Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS)

RLR is the foundation on which SPS is built on,
RLR is the key control for SPS, EWGS and ESS.
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Key Spatial Concepts in the Regulations

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Different types of reference parcel
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Digitisation and back ground maps

Orthophotos are used as an aid to the
digitisation process where boundaries are unclear.
Ordnance Survey MasterMap

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Using Ordnance Survey - Mastermap

• Change intelligence from
• Ordnance Survey field staff
• Local authorities
• Third party commercial sources

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The Data Capture phase
1) January 2002 Phase 1 of the data capture
exercise was undertaken by a consortium of
external GIS contractors. The digitisation began
with Data capture of existing customers (70,000)
with registered IACS land (1.70 million land
parcels). 2) July 2002 A prototype for the
basic storage and maintenance of digitised maps
was built in-house 3) August 2004 Continued data
capture of White space (Phase 2) started in
August 2004 by an external GIS contractor. All
remaining land parcels in England that were not
previously captured were captured during this
phase they include dairy farmers, small beef and
sheep farmers, new entrants, existing IACS
customers that had a new holding number. 4) Sept
2004 The full final RITA (RPA IT Application)
RLR system containing signed off data became
available. 5) October 2005 External GIS
contractors appointed to maintain the RLR
(offline) and help clear the back log of field
change requests and mapping tasks raised as a
result of SPS launch. 6) April 2006 The RLR data
and its maintenance were brought back in-house
in, all mapping/GIS work centralised. An external
GIS contractor was appointed to work in-house on
RPA systems.
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Where are we now - Background to RLR Programme

• Data Quality Review in light of recent audit
  reports and EC visits
• GI Toolkit software platform is out of support
  (ESRI) and is in need of upgrading
• Farmer use Google Earth free service
• Operating as a centralised specialist team (GI
  Services)
• RLR remains a shared service used by FC NE and
  SPS managed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Geographic Intelligence is improving better
  satellites
• RPA moving from an SPS recovery position to a
  strategic driven approach. Further Research and
  Development required.
• Remote Sensing
• Interoperability
• eChannel - electronic service delivery

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Business Drivers for Change

• Primary
• Burning Platforms - technology improvement
• LPIS data becomes quickly out of date
• Software platform unsupported GI fast moving
• Customer Self Service
• EU Disallowance risk (minimisation)
• Operational efficiency
• Secondary
• UK lagging behind other member states
• Pressure/recommendations from EC and JRC
• Support for wider Defra community - pillar 2
  subsidy schemes
• Move to proactive data management - INSPIRE
  regulations

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RLR Programme Development Objectives
Data Refresh Project ineligible feature
removal Customer Land Links Project better in
intelligence on customer/land relationship. System
Upgrade Project Exchange of digital data with
National cadastral agency (Ordnance Survey).
Ability to take digital ortho photography and
ortho corrected satellite images and use with
digital GIS for control purposes. Implement
regular OS MasterMap Updates Future Next
steps Farmer access to field geometry area
attributes via the internet and use a simple
on-line mark up facility for capturing
changes Download of field data for use in farm
software packages.
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Questions