London (17 April 2007) - Northgate Information Solutions, a leading UK provider of innovative technology solutions and services to the public services markets, and Initiate Systems, Inc., a leading international provider of customer-centric master data management solutions, today announced a new partnership that will help to solve issues of data quality and management in the delivery of the Transformational Government agenda.

Presently, customer and business data at local authorities are held across different corporate and departmental IT systems, with little consistency in the information’s format or quality. Tackling this situation is key in enabling councils to meet the objectives of the Transformational Government agenda, as well as making progress towards the vision outlined by Sir David Varney in his Transforming Services review.

As part of its services to its local authority customers in the UK, Northgate is now offering the Initiate Identity Hub™ solution. The solution enables local authorities to combine customer and business data held across disparate corporate and departmental IT systems into centralised master records – simply, accurately and automatically.

Through this extension to Northgate’s service offering, local authorities will benefit from:

• Automatic recording of changes across multiple systems when only one is updated, ensuring that citizens don’t have to provide the same information repeatedly, and that the data is accurate and kept up-to-date in all of a council’s major IT systems – improving satisfaction, and underpinning service transformation.
• Elimination of the need to access individual systems, as the Initiate Identity Hub™ software can extract and check data, in real time, from different departmental information systems and applications – providing time and resource savings, and enabling staff to process enquiries more efficiently.
• Helping local authorities to comply with the Data Protection Act, and meet DfES requirements for a national children’s database.

The first contract for Northgate under this agreement was announced in March by Brent Council. Worth £460,000 over three years, Northgate will build a Client and Business Index for Brent using the Initiate Identity Hub™ software, helping to improve services and efficiency at the north-west London authority.

Dave Meaden, Managing Director of Northgate Public Services, said today: “We are delighted to use our relationship with Initiate to help deliver excellent public services within the local government markets. Accurate and joined-up information is the foundation stone on which citizen-centred services can be delivered, and we believe that this solution can enable local authorities to transform their services.”

David Ashworth, General Manager Commercial and Public Sector, at Initiate Systems UK Limited, added: “We have made an excellent start in local government with the award of the Brent contract. Direct feedback from Brent has praised the cohesiveness of the joint Northgate/Initiate team and has particularly highlighted the data matching run times as, ‘not just impressive but staggering’, with other solutions ‘doing in days what Initiate does in hours/minutes’. With such glowing praise we look forward to actively supporting the Transformational Government agenda in local councils throughout the UK.”

Northgate Information Solutions (www.northgate-is.com) is a leading provider of innovative technology solutions to the public services and utilities markets. Northgate’s task is to enhance public value through the intelligent use of people and technology, and to share in the economic and social benefits that this brings. In the UK, Northgate works with four out of five local authorities and every police force. Its systems are used in the management of over 1.5 million local authority and housing association properties; in the administration of more than £17 billion of revenues and benefits; and in electoral administration systems covering over 18 million people. Founded in 1969, the company has over 3,300 employees.

This announcement follows the signing of a value-added reseller (VAR) agreement in February by Northgate and Initiate, which allows Northgate to sell the Initiate Identity Hub™ software to its police and criminal justice customers in the UK marketplace.