Case Study: Dundee City Council achieves £60,000 savings and 1,500 annual man-hours saved with Ordnance Survey mapping

Dundee City Council - Customer Case Study

Dundee City Council was struggling to manage houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) amid a large student population: concentrations were calculated manually by street name, producing unclear, inconsistent licensing decisions and stakeholder frustration. To address this, the Council partnered with Ordnance Survey, using OS MasterMap Topography Layer and several scale colour raster products to bring geographic information into the HMO licensing process.

Ordnance Survey’s mapping was embedded in the Council’s system to identify properties with three or more unrelated occupants and provide a real-time, citywide picture of HMOs, enabling fairer licence distribution, faster processing and improved stakeholder engagement. The project delivered around £60,000 in savings, cut thousands in inappropriate application costs, saved an estimated 1,500 man-hours per year, and the Ordnance Survey-based approach has since been applied to Pest Control and Community Safety.

Dundee City Council

Paul McGovern

Corporate GIS Project Manager