Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit (AMU) has launched the Postcode Address File (PAF®) Compliance Centre (www.pafcompliancecentre.com).

It has been designed to educate PAF licence Solutions Providers on how they can maximise value from their PAF licence and promote correct and consistent licensing. The main feature of the PAF Compliance Centre is the Compliance Engine which provides a straightforward and engaging way to learn about the PAF licence.

The Compliance Engine breaks down licensing terms and definitions into a set of four easy to understand modules: ‘Getting Started’, ‘Learn’, ‘Apply’ and ‘Test Yourself’. The modules provide visuals aids, guidance notes and practical customer scenarios, before providing the opportunity in the final module for users to test themselves to see what they have learnt.

Steve Rooney, Head of Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit, commented: “We created the PAF Compliance Centre because we wanted to give licensed PAF Solutions Providers the confidence that they are licensing their end-users correctly and consistently, while at the same time communicating how they can maximise value from the PAF licence. This website puts into plain English the different end-user licensing options and is designed to act as a training resource so users are effectively educated in how the licence can be used. “The content on the Compliance Centre will continue to evolve and support continuous learning with new licensing scenarios added on a regular basis.”

The PAF Compliance Centre is the latest website innovation from Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit who last year launched the PAF Supplier Directory – www.poweredbypaf.com - to help connect buyers and sellers of PAF-based solutions.

PAF contains records of almost 29 million addresses and 1.8 million postcodes. One hundred thousand PAF records are updated each month to keep PAF complete and up to date. It is an invaluable tool for creating and maintaining mailing lists and databases, used to improve deliveries and to reduce the number of returned or undelivered items.

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8.   Royal Mail's Address Management Unit (AMU) launches the PAF® Compliance Centre (updated 15 November 2011)

The AMU has published its PAF® Compliance Centre, a new website aimed at helping Solutions Providers understand how to correctly and consistently licence their customers' PAF® use. The PAF® Compliance Centre will provide users, whether or not they are familiar with PAF® licensing, with all of the information and resources they need to get the most from the licence, all written in plain English. The main feature of the website is the Compliance Engine, it is here where users will be guided through the licensing options and considerations, encouraged to learn more licensing terms, and will have the opportunity to both look at customer licensing scenarios, and test their own understanding of the licence terms.

Every day 50* potential End-Users visit the PAF Supplier Directory - www.poweredbypaf.com - looking for a supplier of PAF-based Software and Solutions. The majority of these users click through to the website having viewed the PAF product page on royalmail.com. Now, when users search ‘PAF’ or a number of other address management terms on Google, the PAF Supplier Directory will be displayed within the first page of the search results. Based on the projections**, having this coverage within the Google search results will double the number of visitors to the website, and will generate many more leads for our advertisers.

In April 2011, GeoPlace announced their plans for developing a National Address Gazetteer (NAG) that would bring together a range of addressing datasets, each of which contain PAF® data, into a definitive spatial address database. The first products based on the National Address Gazetteer will be made available from 30th September 2011, to the marketplace via Ordnance Survey. The AddressBase™ products, and any future products derived from the National Address Gazetteer database continue to incorporate PAF data.

We are aware that there is some confusion as to how the licensing of the AddressBase™ products will work under the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA). Under the terms of the PSMA, whilst the AddressBase™ products are available to them – the PSMA licensing obligations still apply. This means that the same Royal Mail terms and obligations apply to the new range of AddressBase™ datasets as for all the other addressing products available under the PSMA. It also means that members continue to have to declare all their usage of addressing products, so those members ordering AddressBase™ datasets via the PSMA data ordering page will be required to make an additional PAF declaration to enable Ordnance Survey to make the appropriate returns to Royal Mail.

For information on the PSMA visit the Ordnance Survey website (new window)

Following the successful launch of our new product production and distribution process last year, we've taken the opportunity to review the system and make some technical upgrades.  As a result the keys that are required to extract the data you are sent have been altered slightly with some additional characters being included.  For more information please see the Document Library below.

Update on changes to Postzon data, as a result of the Office of National Statistics (ONS) changing some of its statistical geographies.  Please see the Document Library below for further details.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and Royal Mail have been working closely for many months to develop and implement a UK-wide Public Sector Licence that covers all Public Sector use of PAF® address and postcode data.  Discussions on this agreement are ongoing and more information on the progress of these, along with specific information about the implications for the address management market, will be provided by Royal Mail in the near future.

Some FAQ's and further information shall be provided on the Royal Mail Address Management website later this week.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has confirmed a new agreement, the PSMA, to provide Ordanance Survey Geographic Information to all of the Public Sector in England and Wales.  The agreement came into effect on 1st April 2011 and Royal Mail is pleased that as part of this Ordanance Survey addressing products that contain PAF® will continue to be provided to Public Sector bodies on standard terms.

Some FAQ's and further information shall be provided on the Royal Mail Address Management website later this week.

The Olympic Stadium has been allocated it's own postcode of E20 2ST and over 100 other postcodes have been allocated to developments being built across the Olympic Park.  Once complete, the E20 postcode will serve upto 8000 planned homes in the future Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.  For further information, please see the Document Library below.

We welcome the Government announcement that addressing information from local authorities and Ordnance Survey will be brought together to create the ‘National Address Gazetteer Database’ (NAG). 

PAF® address and postcode data, already a key component of both Ordnance Survey addressing products and the National Land & Property Gazetteer, will now be playing a critical role in helping power the NAG too. In fact PAF® will be more important than ever for the Public Sector as it will help link multiple datasets together into a single database.  Royal Mail’s intellectual property rights in PAF®, for access and use of updated PAF® records, will be fully recognised, given the importance of PAF® within the NAG.

We sent out an email in September to remind all Solutions Providers of their obligation to register as End-Users in certain circumstances where they may be using PAF® for their own internal use, such as in offering Bureau Services.  A copy of the email called 'Internal Use Licensing Obligation' is in the 'Update' section of the Document Library at the bottom of the page.  Do contact your Account Manager or amureseller@royalmail.com if you, as a Solutions Provider, have any queries about this email. 

We're delighted to announce the launch of our new PAF® Supplier Directory with a web address of www.poweredbypaf.com .  Its launch ties in with October and November's print advertising campaign promoting PAF®.

The returned results will display Premium Plus advertisers at the top of the serarch results, followed by Premium advertisers, and then standard listings. Advertisers will be able to promote the products and services they offer and tell users a little about their business, as well as providing their full contact details.  For information on prices and our different advertising options: http://www.poweredbypaf.com/advertise-with-us/ .

Recent visitors to www.royalmail.com will have noticed significant changes to the website design and navigation.  it is now much easier for users to find address management information.  From the homepage, select 'Small & Medium Businesses'  and the 'Marketing' tab to find a link to our addresss management landing page, from where you can select your 'customer type' to access relevant information and resources. 

We've appointed AFD Software Ltd to help distribute PAF® data on our behalf.  Under this new agreement we've worked with AFD to develop two new media formats - enhanced CD and a new FTP service.  Both media formats have now been launched.  See the letter we sent out about this  in the Document Library below .

Powered by PAF® - that's our new introductory presentation to the how and why of the Address Management Unit .  An overview of our marketplace and our products, giving you the lowdown on the support and promotions we're undertaking this year.  Read it in the Promotional Brochure section of the Document Library at the bottom of the page.

Here are some links to other address management related pages that you may find useful.

• Our other addressing products: To find out more about Royal Mail's products containing PAF® and other location data: www.royalmail.com/addressproducts
• Third party suppliers: For information on other companies providing address management solutions containing PAF: www.poweredbypaf.com
• PAF Advisory Board (PAB): the independent body looking after the interests of all PAF® users.  For further information visit www.pafboard.org.uk.  The Board's Chair is Ian Beesley, who can be contacted at ian.beesley@wotaco.com
• PAF® Code of Practice: describes how and when we changes postcodes and addresses.  Agreed with the Postal Regulator,  Postcomm  .  Download the 2010 PAF® Code of Practice from www.royalmail.com/pafcode.
• How we update PAF®: If you're interested in how we maintain the Postcode Address File database, visit: www.royalmail.com/quality
• Addressing mail: Address queries answered at www.royalmail.com/pafcode.  And here's a page on addressing aimed at businesses: www.royalmail.com/clearaddressing
• Data Protection: Read how your company may be affected by the Data Protection Act .

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