FAO : SD Dimensions : Institutions : Land tenure

This presentation draws on the experience gained by developing and implementing policies and systems, mainly in Australia. It also outlines the major attributes of key systems and describes the main factors that influence the Local Government land and asset policies in Australia.

General literature reviews indicate that the guiding principles for a sound land and asset management policy at the community or local government level are universally applicable. However, while the principles are universal each community has specific requirements that dictate the priorities accorded certain policies and the implementation strategies adopted to achieve the best results for the particular community.

This paper describes land and asset management in Australia, a federation of States and Territories with 3 levels of Government: Commonwealth (federal government); State (6 states and 2 territories); and Local Government or Municipal Councils. The States, and not the Commonwealth government, legislate for and control all granting of land to private and public entities, land titling and the processes for effecting changes of ownership. The States also "own" any land that has not been ceded by grant to another entity; this is called "Crown land". The sovereignty of the States also means that law relating to land is not uniform throughout Australia, although the differences are minor and the States generally aim for alignment. In broad terms, the roles of each level of Government in relation to land management are described below.

The Commonwealth's primary power in relation to land derives from its power to manage external relations and resultant obligations. Many international treaties signed by Australia involve obligations that directly or indirectly affect land management. The Commonwealth is Australia's signatory to these treaties and therefore it must negotiate with the States to effect the provisions of each treaty. Generally the power the Commonwealth seeks to exert over land is not explicit so it usually must achieve its objectives by negotiation and or persuasion.

As a consequence of their sovereignty the States are the "main" controllers of land and its use and development. States:

Municipal Councils are established by States and have several main functions in relation to land and assets. They regulate land use and development by controlling permits for the intended type of land use; size and scope of any possible land development; and scope and nature of buildings and relevant materials and constructions. Collecting revenue from Rates levied on land and its occupancy is another important function. Municipal Councils undertake strategic planning to enhance future livelihood prospects for the community. In addition, they own and control a significant land and assets portfolio. It is this last function that is the focus of the remainder of the paper.

In order that a Council can develop and implement effective policies and achieve the targeted objectives, the following preconditions are necessary.

Sound governance requires that organizations develop and implement effective processes that can enhance the security and long term viability of the organization and ensure accountability and transparency of actions. Governance arrangements will include:

These are basic for "monitoring the health of an organisation" and for developing policy. Good policy development requires an understanding of the operational environment: information systems can provide such by enabling situations that require corrective action to be identified, analysed or evaluated. To produce information useful for policy development and management the systems should:

The final preconditions for effective development and implementation policy are:

Municipal Councils own and control very large land and assets portfolios (often valued at over A$1 billion (US$650M) or more). The majority of the "value" (up to 80% of the total) is usually in roads and drains. Owning and controlling such assets is not a free exercise. Capital costs and direct costs relating to owning, maintaining, operating, insuring and financing assets, either through lease or purchase are very high and can make what appears to be an asset a liability. In addition to actual costs Councils also have a number of implicit and opportunity costs arising from ownership and control of land and assets. Good performance is thus essential when managing these large portfolios.

The primary targets of policy for land and assets owned and controlled by Councils are: (a) to improve physical and financial performance and reduce costs and risks of owning, controlling, operating and maintaining land and assets and, (b) to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of processes for planning, acquiring, redeploying and disposing of land and assets.

In essence, the above ensures that: (a) proper assets are acquired; (b) assets are used and maintained to deliver their originally planned service potential, and (c) assets are disposed of when they can be no longer used effectively or have reached the end of their service life.

"Tools" and "practices" exist that can aid Municipal Councils to achieve their policy targets. However, these "tools" and "practices" are only aids to improved performance and can only be fully effective if the "preconditions to effective policies" described earlier exist.

Regarding the function of managing land and assets, the two fundamental prerequisites for sound asset management are:

Management implies the monitoring of situations and consequent action to ensure specific results when information so indicates. This requires access to timely and reliable information and therefore, the establishment of specialized information systems. In general these systems will focus on the following main issues, i.e. to ensure that land assets:

To address the above issues it is necessary to establish a co-ordinated set of arrangements that can report on asset performance. On the basis of said reports proper action can be taken to ensure achievement of the expected performance. Basic steps for the establishment of said arrangements are:

The first step is to establish the working definitions of "assets"; the types, or classes, of assets, and the reason why each type of asset needs recording. At the same time the Land and Asset Recording arrangements and relevant key requirements of the recording system must be established. The following definitions and descriptions are based on experience and may be a useful guide.

The definition most commonly understood is that used by Accountants but, in this context, this definition needs to be broadened to encompass all the physical items a Council has to manage. Accordingly, Assets are herein defined as physical items that: (a) Councils use to deliver services; (b) are retained for a specific future use, and (c) Councils manage on behalf of the community. This definition includes:

The above two classes of items are generally classified as "Core" Assets. Excluded are the items not used by the Council or which are managed by it for the community, and the items considered as surplus. These latter items are generally defined as "Non-Core" Assets. A separate class of assets is "Heritage Assets". These are a sub-class of "Core Assets" and have a particular social, historical or environmental importance or "value" for the community. They include "old buildings", places or physical features, artworks, etc. These items are to be retained and husbanded for their intrinsic special value for the community or Council. This distinction is important in relation to:

An issue that Councils need to address is the establishment of criteria on asset retention to ensure that "Core Assets" are retained and "Non-Core Assets" are readily disposed of. Disposal of "Non-Core Assets" is an important portfolio management function. Ownership of physical items, including land, involves significant costs and risks. Retaining assets, especially land, beyond their efficient use potential (a) reduces Council's access to capital; (b) reduces Rate Revenue income and income from potential increase in economic activity; (c) increases maintenance costs, and (d) increases the number of involved disadvantaged or injured claimants.

Here decisions concern asset recording priority and key information required about assets.

The factors that determine priorities vary, but my experience, which is based mainly on the need to manage assets-related risks, suggests the following:

Details to be recorded will vary according to the type or class of asset. Below are listed commonly maintained information items which may serve as a useful guide to the scope and nature of the information needed for effective asset management. The list is not exhaustive and, for example, does not include items related to taxation since at present in Australia taxes do not affect Council-owned assets.

Once assets have been recorded it is necessary to define the information required for efficient asset management. To this end Councils must perform regular stocktakes, that is, visually inspect each and every asset on a defined basis. As the purpose of the inspection and the nature of the assets vary, the inspection intervals shall also vary. Councils must also establish and perform regular asset condition assessments. Mostly this implies identification of maintenance requirements. A third requirement is for Councils to establish performance and reporting requirements.

All physical items involve risks, whether they are injuries and damages to users and/or third parties and property, or loss of assets and consequent loss of income. It is necessary that a Council establishes proper procedures for determining which risks, and what level of risks, it will manage itself and how it will deal with risks it does not want to manage (e.g. by insuring). To do this a Council needs: (a) to be aware of the obligations inherent in ownership and control; (b) to assess the risks that are associated with the assets it owns and controls. Councils should have risk assessments carried out by independent assessors and should have them reviewed regularly (e.g. every 5 years). Furthermore, risk management arrangements should be defined as each asset is acquired.

Once the risks and relevant management strategies are determined, detailed management plans for various types of risks and assets can then be developed. These shall incorporate anticipated performance targets and reporting arrangements and these will be captured by the asset information system. One example of an asset-related issue leading to claims concerns the injuries to people due to poorly maintained sidewalks. The frequency of such claims has led Councils to focus attention on this as a key maintenance item. Detailed information of such assets and claims were used in the preparation of risk management plans.

All land and assets require regular inspection and maintenance, and this requires planning to ensure: (a) safe and efficient operation; (b) minimum risk of injury to operators and third parties and property; (c) retention of the asset's value and service life (assets need to be maintained to achieve related service planned life).

The main issues to address to ensure efficient and effective maintenance of assets are:

Step 6: Definition of asset acquisition, redeployment and disposal operations

Asset acquisitions, redeployments and disposals will arise from changes in service delivery patterns. For example, population growth may lead to the need for a new child care centre, while technological evolution will produce the need to dispose of a particular computer and acquire a more powerful one. In operational terms all such changes must be planned in the context of plans for services the Council delivers and these plans in turn must also take account of the financial objectives of the Council.

Accordingly, the Council's action should address the development of advanced asset plans that relate to advanced plans for services and the medium-term objectives. As with maintenance, Councils also need to establish arrangements for efficient and effective project planning and implementation; this, in turn, requires sound project definition and management arrangements, that include: (a) clearly defined objectives and scopes for each project; (b) planned time, cost and quality outcomes; (c) defined management and resourcing arrangements.

From Step 6 above it follows that asset acquisition, redeployment, disposal and maintenance activities are similar to projects in that they have clearly defined objectives and specific commencement and completion points. These types of activities require management structures different from the structures that manage continuous types of operations. Councils that are good at asset management recognise this and have different arrangements to ensures that: (a) projects are identified and properly managed as to time, cost and quality objectives; (b) managers have clearly defined responsibilities.

In general the laws establishing Municipal Councils provide that Chief Executive Officers be responsible for the safekeeping and performance of all assets owned and controlled by the Councils. Specific performance responsibilities may be delegated by Chief Executive Officers to key managers who, also, may delegate responsibilities further. Delegated responsibilities must be clear and unambiguous. Below are 3 relatively typical delegations of responsibility:

The purpose of asset management is to achieve better performance and outcomes; accordingly, it is necessary to establish means for measuring and comparing present and future situations. To be effective performance appraisal programs must be simple to operate (easy data collection and reporting); reliable (accurate results); relevant (provision of useful information); and timely (reflection of current situations).

Performance appraisal programs are designed to address many aspects of performance related to individual assets, groups of assets or a whole assets portfolio. For example:

In relation to Land and Assets owned and controlled on behalf of the community, Councils aim to improve performance by adopting financial management procedures and processes that enable them to identify and report on the current cost of using physical items and the remainder asset service potential. Councils implement these policies as part of improved corporate governance arrangements that demand stricter performance accountability and greater transparency in reporting, and which necessitate implementation of information systems that enable a range of analytical tools including Geospatial Information systems. Good governance also demands greater accountability for, and from, staff for the resources they use in the delivery of Council services.

Regarding management of assets, Councils use asset information systems that tidentify the items that are relevant for resource and risk management, financial reporting, and security purposes and which support:

The diagram below shows the various system elements and associated interrelations.

5.2 Land information systems and good governance (Canada)

A general discussion of policy, governance and organizational development leads into an examination of the experience of the Province of New Brunswick, Canada in developing one of the first commercially available, on-line registry and land information systems in the world. This development, based on private/public sector cooperation, has been a positive experience with benefits for all participants. The public sector consolidated all land-related units into one lead organization with a clear mandate and policy, including the necessity to function in a business-like manner and become self-sufficient. Relations with the private sector evolved over time to provide an opportunity to develop trust and an understanding of respective cultures and objectives. It was found that agreements needed to be spelled out clearly, and that work needed to be chunked into achievable pieces or modules, with an incremental approach to development. A successful private/public sector partnership can result in self-sufficiency for the public sector, enhanced skills and capabilities for the private sector, and easy access to land-related information for citizens.

Good land administration, which is fundamental to the economic and social development of any society, must take full cognisance of the cultural and ecological context in which it is to be developed and applied, and must engage all sectors of society. Underlying any land administration system is the cadastre or land information system. Dowson and Shepherd (1952) have remarked on the difficulty of defining a cadastre, but emphasise that it is essentially a technical and authoritative documentary record of parcellation embodied in a register. If the full benefits of a cadastre or land information system are to be realised, it must be developed and function within an integrated policy framework that addresses the social, cultural, economic and environmental issues of the particular jurisdiction. Thus the guidelines on land administration of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) state the following:

Realising these benefits requires a broad policy framework that would include a commitment to economically and environmentally sustainable development (the subject of ecological economics), and social justice and equity. More specifically, within the context of land administration, it might be expressed as: "to provide easy public access to integrated, land related information in support of informed decision-making" (Finley et al 1998). This is a deceptively simple policy statement with deep implications for governance.

The World Bank (1989) identified a number of issues associated with good governance including institutional arrangements and decision-making processes, policy formulation itself and the ability to implement policy, the nature of information flows and exchanges, and most fundamentally, the relationship between the government and its citizens. The latter implies an effective and responsive public administration system with a strong focus on citizen clients. This ultimately means providing land information as an easily accessible commodity through electronic commerce, and providing citizens with an interactive forum for participation in development of land policy. In most jurisdictions this will require a commitment to organizational change and development.

The issues or strategies that need to be addressed in the organizational development of an efficient, effective and service-oriented land information system include:

· integration or consolidation of land administration functions under a single agency;

· outsourcing and building strong partnerships between the public and private sectors;

· taking a business approach with respect to revenue generation and capitalisation.

Traditionally, land administration services have been fragmented across a number of government departments, all with their own jurisdictional imperatives of power, influence and resource access. Disparate data structures, quality standards and priorities, resulting in serious obstacles to sharing, coordination and integration, have accompanied these. Thus, for example, registry might fall under Justice, property valuation under Finance and mapping under Natural Resources or Planning (Dale and McLaughlin 1999).

Overcoming these constraints requires a number of conditions including (Finley et al 1998; Nichols et al 1999):

The delivery of land information services covers a wide spectrum from the national, government controlled models found in such countries as Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden to the largely private model existing in the United States (Dale and McLaughlin 1999). There has been a strong movement to privatisation of government services in recent years as governments strive to become more efficient in delivering service while coping with deficits and debts in the face of rising opposition to increased taxes. Delivery of land information services has been no exception. The fundamental assumptions behind this trend to privatisation are that:

· competition between private sector firms can lead to efficiencies in cost and timeliness;

· the private sector has greater access to financing for capital investment; and

· the private sector is better able to respond to rapid change in technologies and customer demands.

However, privatisation is not without risks associated with quality assurance, cultural conflict between the public and private sector personnel, stability of the private sector firms, accountability, and security (Nichols et al 1998). To achieve the efficiencies and manage the risks associated with privatisation, outsourcing to the private sector has led to partnerships where responsibilities are clearly delineated. However, the balance between the public sector and the private sector is very much a function of:

Along with the move to privatisation and increasing public/private partnerships is the move by government to create more self-sufficient units with revenue generating capabilities. To address this pressure, land administration units have moved, or been moved, towards one of three broad models (Dale and McLaughlin 1999).

· Reformed State Agencies. These are agencies or departments that remain within government structures but are assigned accountability and responsibility for meeting revenue and expenditure targets.

· Government Corporations. While these remain as government entities they have considerable independence and operate with their own Board of Directors and must be self-sufficient. They answer to government as the principal shareholder.

· Private Utilities. These operate as a private business, but often as a monopoly under government regulatory control in the sense of setting fee schedules. This structure is becoming less common with increasing deregulation and privatisation.

A fundamental prerequisite for success is an active land market to create the climate for successful private sector activity. In addition, there needs to be a strong customer relations and marketing program to justify fees within a public service environment, and an internal government relations program to generate support from both the political and bureaucratic levels.

New Brunswick is a relatively small province of Canada that is largely dependent on natural resources for its economy. It is located on the Atlantic coast, encompasses about 73,000 km² divided into 500,000 parcels, and has a population of 760,000. Under the Canadian constitution, the provinces have control over natural resources. This gives the province authority over mapping and land registration. Since there is no municipal authority or funding in this area either, it has been relatively easy to develop provincial programs relating to land administration such as land registration, assessment and mapping.

Europeans settled the Province of New Brunswick in the early 1700s. Early settlers were granted large blocks of land along the rivers, since these were the main transportation routes. This resulted in a `crazy quilt' of settlement, and the registry system that developed was a grantor/grantee deeds registry system. By the 1960s it was extremely difficult to determine who owned what and where. This made land transfers extremely complex and difficult and hindered economic development.

During the 1950s and 60s a number of initiatives were undertaken to improve the management of land information. These included coordinated surveys programs, land registration reform, and the introduction of automated property valuation systems (Finley et al 1998). In 1966 it was proposed to initiate a Land Information System in four phases:

While the first two phases went ahead successfully, a number of constraints derailed the last two phases. These constraints included the lack of reward systems in government, lack of clear policy and focus, inadequate computing systems, differing standards and differing hardware and software systems among related departments, and insufficient funding (Coleman 1988, Finley et al 1998).

In 1989 a Land Information Policy was instituted that provided clear direction and "guidelines for the collection, storage retrieval, dissemination and use of land information" (Finley et al 1998). As part of the policy implementation the New Brunswick Geographic Information Corporation (NBGIC) was created to consolidate and amalgamate the functions of land registration, property assessment, and mapping. The responsibilities of NBGIC included:

By 1996 this had evolved into the Real Property Information Internet Service (RPIIS), one of the first commercially available, on-line land registry systems in the world. The RPIIS supports viewing and browsing parcel-based information. The components of this system include: a Property Assessment and Taxation Database; a Parcel Index Database, which provides ownership information on 500,000 parcels; and a Property Map Database containing digital maps of the parcels.

Finally, by January 1997, the Land Gazette, an integrated database of additional land-based information, had augmented the RPIIS. Currently this database contains three datasets provided by the Department of Environment: location of underground petroleum storage tanks; location of current and former dump or landfill sites; and setbacks from municipal water systems (Ogilvie nd). It is planned to expand this database with other datasets as they become available such as areas of archaeological significance, municipal watersheds and coastal zone protection.

The organizational development of the New Brunswick Land Administration system has taken account of the main issues described above: integration, outsourcing and partnerships, and a business approach.

This was achieved under the Land Information Policy of 1989 when the New Brunswick Geographic Information Corporation was created as a Crown Corporation with responsibility for the functions of land registration, property assessment, and mapping. As a Crown Corporation, NBGIC was structured as private business with a Board of Directors, President, Vice-Presidents and Divisions, and expected to generate sufficient revenue to be self-sufficient. Revenues remained at the disposal of the corporation rather than being returned to general revenue. In one stroke, therefore, all the functions of land administration that had been distributed among a number of government departments were consolidated and integrated within a single entity. However, individual Departments are still responsible for maintaining their datasets and databases.

An important issue here is building and maintaining positive relations with the contributing Departments. This requires continual exchange and dialogue amongst interdepartmental committees, Deputy Minister ratification of annual mapping plans, task groups for special mapping projects such as coastal zone mapping and geo-referencing, and maintenance of the digital topographic files from Transportation, Natural Resources and Municipalities.

Property assessment and taxation, the parcel index database, and the property map database flow from SNB, while the other datasets in the Land Gazette component flow from other responsible departments. In this system there is a single entry approval process to ensure security and quality (Figure 1).

As pointed out above, NBGIC or Service New Brunswick (SNB) as it is now known, was structured as a self-sufficient Crown Corporation responsible for its own financing. Thus over the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, funding moved from a tax-based departmental budget to an independent fee-for-service budget (Figure 2). The corporation, therefore, had to decide how much to charge for each service in order to generate enough revenue to sustain its operations, including research and development. Fees had to cover cost of development, use of server and networks, lost revenues from browser available information, and maintenance and expansion of operations. Other questions involved how much to charge for different products in different formats, and how to set up appropriate accounting and billing systems.

The difficulty of pricing government products and services led to the development of a pricing policy with a number of principles that assigned different formulas to different types of products (Table 1).

The summarised income statement shows that revenues and expenditures are closely in balance (Table 2). This demonstrates that where there is a strong land market, a vibrant private sector, and the necessary organizational infrastructure, it is possible to operate an advanced and self-sufficient land information system.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s the government and the University of New Brunswick (in the form of members of the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering) had been developing the concept and components of the evolving land administration system. At the same time, the private sector in the form of Universal Systems Limited (USL) had been developing the Geographic Information Systems software known as CARIS. In 1994 USL and the Geodesy and Geomatics Group at UNB, with input from NBGIC, cooperated in developing a wide-area, network-based enhancements to the CARIS GIS software, which led to the CARIS Internet Server. The decision was then made to integrate this product with Web technology and standards for use with multi-platform browsers such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. (Hurley nd; Ogilvie nd).

In 1996 the partnership between NBGIC and USL was formalised in a contract to develop an internet-based, on-line access to the land information system, which resulted in the Real Property Information Internet Service (RPIIS). This Web service is managed by USL on behalf of NBGIC. In 1997 NBGIC was folded into a newly created Crown Corporation with wider responsibilities called Service New Brunswick (SNB). At the same time, but independently, the interdisciplinary Centre for Property Studies (CPS) was established at UNB. While the core partnership involves SNB and USL, the CPS and a number of private and professional organizations contribute to the partnership.

Experience has shown that developing relationships with the private sector in public/private partnerships involves reciprocal benefits. The public sector can concentrate on developing policy and direction while the private sector can handle all aspects of land information including project management, quality control, specification development, and testing. The net result is that the public sector develops a self-sufficient public service, and the private sector develops marketable skills and capabilities.

A number of lessons for ensuring productive and manageable outcomes have been learned from the partnership experience. These include:

SNB, in close cooperation with USL, other private sector organizations and academia, including the Centre for Property Studies is embarked on development of an advancement of the current system called PLANET. This is a comprehensive, integrated, on-line source of land registration, assessment, mapping, and information services, allowing citizens to conduct land-based transactions more quickly, cheaply, efficiently, and with better information than any other jurisdiction in the world.

With the PID-based registry in land titles the size of documentation will be drastically reduced, and the opportunity is created for the introduction of electronic registrations. The new electronic process will permit lawyers to access the title information on-line and effect a parcel transfer through an electronic interface that will automatically index and register the submission. The application will contain a certificate of title from the lawyer, and the SNB back office activity will be reduced. Under an agreement with the Law Society, the applying lawyer retains liability for a set period of time and SNB retains its role of front line liability. At the end of a set time period, full liability will again reside with SNB.

In summary, the new process has multiple triggers for application to accelerate the process. It is front office driven with the cooperation of the Law Society, back office activity will be minimised, and titling will have shared liability between SNB and the Law Society. The major issues to be dealt with include privacy, improved access to the system, and integration with electronic commerce.

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the New Brunswick experience to date; keeping in mind that these may not be applicable to other jurisdictions with different histories, cultures or political systems.

The development of the system must be focused on serving the citizen customer, not simply on developing a government program. It is important to consolidate all primary land-related units into one organization, and this organization should function in as business-like a manner as possible. The more work that is allocated to the private sector the better, but the relationship with the private sector needs to evolve in terms of trust and cultural understanding, and be tightly controlled. There is money to be made in land information sufficient to cover the costs of operation and development of a land information system, but the real value-added work should be left to the private sector.

Finally, it has been demonstrated that an efficient and cost effective land information system can be developed in which information can serve as both an electronically traded commodity, and as the foundation for citizen involvement in development of land policies.

5.3 Development of information models to evaluate, measure, and manage risk impacts of Government policies on agriculture (Canada)

The study considered public policy impacts on agriculture, and provided an analysis of the risks created through multiple layers of legislative and regulatory decisions. Evaluation work was at four levels of government: international, federal, provincial, and municipal, as well as community interests.

Research showed an absence of analysis, measurements, documentation, studies and findings about how government decisions influence farming, and the associated costs inside the farm gate. Preliminary analysis of four Canadian provinces, and survey work in the other provinces and territories, showed Canadian farmers are working with an increasing number of government acts, regulations, and administrative rules from both domestic and international governments, and trade and commodity stakeholders. The results are conflicting, overlapping, and duplicated public policy. The analysis showed there are added costs of food production in a society that expects food to be safe, of high quality, readily available, and inexpensive. Costs due to legislation are largely absorbed by the producers with limited opportunity to pass on those costs to the consumer.

This paper provides findings about how to identify, measure, and manage risks associated with government policy impacts on agriculture and related land use and environmental issues. Although our recent risk management study considered national and international agricultural issues from a Canadian viewpoint, many themes were identified that have universal impacts and represent the opportunity to share information among agricultural interests. Key to the work is the absence of information management models to determine the direct and indirect cost impacts of government legislation, and regulations, on agriculture in general, food production specifically, and the environment globally.

This study reported on the outcomes of public policy research conducted on a risk management assessment of government impacts on agriculture. From all current research and available information, this study is seen as the first comprehensive review of the relevant impacts of government "inside the farm gate" in Canada. Included in the examination were influences of communities and local, provincial/state, federal and international governments through agreements, legislation, regulations, bylaws and common agricultural practices.

· To analyze the risks on the farm created through multi layers of decision making

The absence of public policy risk management information prompted this study, as no previous benchmarks or measurements were available to serve as positive or negative indicators of change. The goal of the project was to encourage discussions, provide findings, make recommendations, and prepare forward-looking policies on a continuum of near (local) and far-reaching (global) issues.

The catalyst for this project was our 1998 study for the British Columbia (Canada) Ministry of Agriculture and Food. For this we examined the direct and indirect local government costs of operating or starting a farm, including taxation, regulations, bylaws, fees and permit charges. Six rural/urban municipalities (local government districts) and six commodities were examined. This study concluded that local government costs were only a small part of the overall influence of governments on day-to-day farming.

Canada has a diversity of federal, provincial, territorial and local governments, each with a broad spectrum of domestic and international policy issues. The national study that followed the 1998 micro investigation provided a number of challenges, both in size and scope, to examine the complexities of governments and their impacts on agriculture.

A context model was developed to show the wide-range of government influences on farming. The first layers are the domestic levels within national borders, the second layers are the international influences, and the final layer is seen as the emergence of the "right to farm" or standard farm practices. These layers were combined to show the overall impact of governments and provide a common reference point.

The study provided a qualitative public policy analysis rather than a quantitative economic analysis. An economic analysis would be another step.

1. What domestic and international agreements, laws, regulations, policies, administrative and communication practices associated with Canadian farm operations ARE WORKING WELL?

2. What are the WEAK LINKS and unclear practices in the different levels of government?

3. What are the EMERGING issues that present risks to farmers and farm operations?

Use of these three leading questions helped to identify concerns and issues without embarking on dozens of time-consuming questions that could point the respondent in a particular direction. Moreover, these questions set a positive tone and put people at ease. This approach, from our experience, generated an open discussion and resulted in more constructive responses.

However, as researchers we needed to have clear points of reference and constantly remain on track. Specific questions that we needed to raise as part of our research were:

· How do environmental regulations impact on land designated as productive agricultural land?

· How do environmental regulations and associated costs impact on farm businesses?

· What and how much is the risk element factor to the farmer when dealing with environmental regulations and multiple levels of government?

· Where are the points of overlap and/or conflict in the various levels of environmental regulations and at what cost?

· To what extent is agriculture facing increased environmental regulatory costs and risk today, and how different are the findings from five years ago?

Combined with global and national policies are farm operational issues. Examples are:

The study team developed a quadrant to categorise the risk impact of anticipated government changes in agriculture, through legislation, regulations, and trade agreements. Use of the quadrant model helps to identify the resources required to manage the risk. The model received strong support by both producers and government staff as a way to classify issues for further analysis and to indicate the relevant risks and their importance. (See Figure 1.)

Additional measurement models were developed or are in design stages. One involves the idea of measuring the cumulative or incremental impact of public policy land use decisions on farms. A simple visual image was produced to display the many ways in which productive land is removed from agricultural use, for example through:

Another model is being developed for testing to assess four critical segments of public policy impacts on farm management for the 21^st century. The idea is to provide comparative measurements of change to include numbers of farms, available agricultural land in acres, productivity, and return on equity/investment. Other data include available land, productivity and return on investment.

We are also working on the design of a three-dimensional measurement model to consider direct and indirect dollar costs, sustainability and governance issues involving the costs of environmental legislation and regulations on agriculture. The context or framework of the model will be scientifically based.

An identified weakness is the absence of a model to test the economic impacts of environmental regulations on agriculture. There is a need to develop, test and apply models to evaluate and measure the economic impact of regulations on agriculture in ways that are:

A practical first step is to test existing regulations that involve a number of economic influences, both quantitative and qualitative, and where both scientific and community approaches require study. Among the leading issues for evaluation of the initial test models are regulations involving air quality, watercourse management, soil conditions and wildlife habitats. The following tests of existing regulations are recommended as a test base:

· Water: Drainage of excess water (Fish Protection Act/Water Act/Drainage, Ditch and Dyke Act)

· Wildlife: Wildlife and wetland protection (Wildlife Act/Migratory Birds Convention)

The objective is to examine emerging areas beyond the traditional "direct cost" impacts of a two-dimensional or flat matrix model. Models must be multi-dimensional and have many facets to provide both comprehensive understanding and practical application. For example, we developed a number of innovative approaches as frameworks for policy and regulatory evaluations along with cost-impacts. These "bench-marking approaches" have direct application to establishing a framework and then developing working models.

Included are a series of multi-dimensional models to assist with qualitative and quantitative measurements and analysis. A model that we would propose using is the octagon, which provides an assessment of governance impacts and influences. Another suggestion is a framework of concentric circles, which can be modified to test changes in impacts of environmental regulations on the agriculture chain from what is often termed "gate to plate."

The models are designed to consider a variety of measurements within and outside the traditional economic areas. There are a number of additional areas of impact including:

· global standards of ISO 9000 (quality measurements), ISO 14000 (environmental controls and compliance requirements), and HACCP (hazard analysis of critical control points)

· multi-layers of government in terms of international, federal, provincial, municipal, and community

· measurements that incorporate both scientific analysis of the cost impact of the regulation and the emotional/human reactions

· international and domestic trade agreements and growing use of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT's)

The study made 31 recommendations that were put into 10 categories. These categories reflect consistent, and I would suggest universal, themes found through the personal meetings and survey work conducted as part of the research. They are:

The study found that farmers are working with an increasing number of legislative acts, regulations, and administrative rules from both domestic and international governments, and trade and commodity stakeholders. The results are increased costs of food production in a society that expects food to be safe, of high quality, readily available, and inexpensive. Today, due to government policy decisions, legislation and administrative regulations these additional costs are largely absorbed by the producer with limited opportunity to pass on those costs to the consumer.

The analysis showed that agriculture and food production on the farm is a fragile industry, certainly in Canada, and based on our international review work, I would suggest also throughout Europe. We started the project with the Context Chart of Risk Impacts on Farming to show the areas of government influence. The results of the study showed the need to rearrange the rings into a series of concentric circles with overlapping and encroaching impacts on a farm operation. The model was developed to highlight the principal finding that local and international impacts have a significant influence inside the farm gate. The chart shows the importance of national responses to international needs, and the requirements of state/provincial governments to deal with the increasing number of local government issues that impact on farm operations. (See Figure 2.)

5.4 System management in land tenure: Experiences in land registration and property management in Eastern Germany after reunification (Germany)

One has to consider the land tenure situation that existed in the autumn of 1989 and summer of 1990 to fully understand the complexity of achieving a radical change in the real estate cadastre and the registration of property in the former GDR. Aspects of the existing situation are the following:

· 60% of the land was privately owned. This was especially true for agricultural areas and for land with single or two-family houses. Therefore the proportion of private property, especially in the rural areas, was considerably high.

· A high proportion of the land was under state ownership. However, often this land was handed over to firms, community housings or private persons etc. for particular uses. Quite often parcels were with buildings. This situation meant that, whereas the land was under state ownership, the buildings on it were instead owned by state companies and real property agencies or were under private ownership. This resulted in many situations where land and buildings on it had different owners, although both should represent an inseparable unit. Such situations resulted in many disputes.

· The existing land cadastre served to prove the location and size of land parcels, but between 1945 and 1989 it was applied somewhat carelessly. It was often inexact, full of contradictions and, particularly with respect to buildings, incomplete. Subsequently the planning bases, especially important for the development of infrastructures, were non-existent or very deficient in respect to precise and comprehensive information.

· The land parcels were registered for evidence of land ownership and the use of the land for financial security. As only a very limited real estate market existed, people gave little consideration to the registration of new ownership, e.g. through inheritance or gifts.

Even today, 10 years after the reunification, we have situations where the registered owners are deceased and a large number of heirs appear. In case of land conflicts, the rightful owners have to be identified. This often requires an extensive investigation work.

Since 1990, in Eastern Germany there has been a great and urgent need for new transport routes (motorways, railway lines), modern flats, private single family houses and modern shops (supermarkets, shopping centres). Related problem issues include:

· With these great demands a vast building boom developed, beginning with the 90's and continuing to 1997, creating many construction works. The consequent demand for general surveying and cadastral surveying services could not be satisfied. Surveys were delayed for up to 2 years. A great demand for training of specialists in the field of cadastral surveying and property register arose.

· Many original owners made ownership claims (restitution claims) for state owned land parcels. East Germans who had moved to the West either legally or illegally lost their rights to their parcels, which were automatically taken over by the state. Since one of the decisions resulting from the reunification was that the original owners should get back their rights to their former lands, the authorities were overwhelmed with claims which had to be resolved on a legal basis.

· No functioning land market existed. Private owners did not sell since they did not know the value of their land and also because they were waiting for an increase in land value. Municipal lands could not yet be disposed of since it was not clear who had legal title rights. Subsequently an over-priced land market developed where parcels were sold at excessive prices.

· No precedent existed in all the world from which to draw useful information for transformation from a planned to a free market economy. There was no practical example of this in the whole world. This situation had to be addressed for the first time. Although in general laws and regulations of West Germany could be applied to East Germany, however they could not be completely valid because of the different starting conditions in the East. It was thus necessary to develop laws to accompany the transition from a planned economy and related social circumstances to a market economy. The special starting situation in the former GDR necessitated requirements for transformation of the property rights system.

Requirements for the safeguarding of land ownership consequent to reunification

In the Federal Republic of Germany some laws are formulated and agreed at the federal level and others at the state level. Legal regulations had to be created concerning the following points:

Pertinent laws were prepared and passed at federal level, meaning that the regulations are also valid for all of the former GDR.

The capacity of the existing land ownership cadastre structures had to be greatly strengthened through:

These requirements were however solved at the state level. Indeed, partnerships were established between the "old" (West German) states and the "new" (East German) states. As a result we find today in the individual states many legal regulations which do not or only remotely differ from the respective regulations existing in the partner states.

Many restitution claims remained to be dealt with. Because of the general fact that the former owners and current owners do not voluntarily agree, many court proceedings were required to clarify these claims.

Five fundamental transition laws have been enacted. In addition there are several other laws and regulations as well as improvements of these laws. However, regulatory gaps and deficiencies were still detected during the transition process most of which could be remedied through completion and adjustment actions. The 5 major laws are:

· "Treuhandgesetz"- Trusts' law (1990). This law was passed by the former GDR government on 17 June 1990, two weeks before the re-unification of Germany. The crucial content of this law is that all the GDR state property will be transferred to a company which is 100% state owned. This company should then privatise individual parts of the state property to reduce the enterprising activities of the current government. At the same time state owned land would be transferred to private ownership for investment and agricultural use.

· "Landwirtschaftsanpassungsgesetz" - Agricultural adjustment law (1991). This law was designed for transformation of the former Cooperative farms. It regulated the process on how the Cooperative farms were to be transferred to private companies. The main problem was always the ascertainment of the property and the passing of parts of the property to the owners. This includes the inventory, buildings, machinery, livestock as well as the land. There are cases where the land and the buildings erected thereon belonged to different owners. Legal proceedings were developed within the provisions of the agricultural adjustment law in which the parties must agree on a voluntary basis through the exchange of lots or through financial balancing. As a result in some instances the land property and building property could be reunited.

· "Investitionsvorranggesetz" - Investment priority law (1992). Especially during the first months following reunification, many necessary investment activities could not be carried out because of the lack of land. Important investments were blocked through the disagreement about property claims. Thus this Investment Priority Law (1992) was passed. The main idea of this law was that an investor could develop the land even if claims should arise. Further investments were also permitted even if at future court proceedings the land should be adjudged to the former owner. The former landowner should receive financial compensation.

· "Bodensonderungsgesetz" - Special land law (1993). Another problem at the beginning of the 90's was the insufficient operational potential of surveying, especially short-term cadastral surveying. This concerned especially those areas where buildings had been erected with no consideration for the actual land boundaries. Enactment of this 1993 law was intended to correct this situation. It made it possible to build on land parcels on the basis of maps without local surveying. This led to an acceleration of the building process and to the solution of many conflicts. In addition it was mandated that in further changes of the land parcels, for instance parcel subdivision, heritage or sale, local surveying was obligatory.

· "Sachenrechtsbereinigungsgesetz" - Property rights settlement law (1994). Another problem emerged in the beginning of the 90's. It was necessary to decide who should take over the former state owned land. With the enactment of this law, the state-owned land could be transferred to private ownership, cooperatives, companies or communes or other public municipal institutions, respectively.

There is no standardised approach to cadastre at the federal level. Surveying is done under the jurisdiction of the different states. Thus, the land cadastre differs in body and structure across Germany. But in general the land cadastres in the different states follow the same principles:

· Creation of state (land) surveying departments and subordinate government surveying departments. For the setting-up of the federal land registry it was possible to use the structures from the former GDR real estate offices.

· Admittance of private small and medium-sized surveying firms to work on the land cadastre. During the setting-up of small and medium-sized surveying offices there was considerable help from surveying offices from the "old" states in former West Germany. The professional organizations arranged know-how transfer and financial support.

· Provide measures for the specific training of new specialists (surveying technicians and engineers) in order to meet the high demands. Especially the training of additional surveyors was organized by private companies through the retraining of unemployed engineers and technicians from other technical sectors. These measures were financially supported by the government as measures against unemployment.

· Extensive investment for the general introduction of automated surveying and property valuation technology. Investments for automated surveying and property evaluation systems were made by the private sector as well as by the federal government cadastral agencies. A high degree of technology was achieved in a very short time.

· Creation of a comprehensive framework for a standardised state-wide realisation of cadastral work. The partnership of the old and new federal states could facilitate undelayed development of the necessary laws and regulations. This partnership between the new and the old federal countries was very essential for the creation of a legal framework in such a short period of time.

In the 40 years of existence of the GDR, land registers existed and to fulfill their functions. However, because the value of land was only symbolic (very low), owner changes due to heritage or donations were sometimes not registered.

Projects were carried out to inform the population about the role of the land register so that the owners could help bring the register up to date. In this matter the media offered a strong support. Many programs and articles of the daily press contained notices on the necessity of property registration so that in most of the cases the overdue registrations were readily carried out.

When building and land ownership were not identical, the matters were dealt with step by step. Such land conflicts were solved using different methods: possibility of voluntary unification of building and land, ("Landwirtschaftsanpassungsgesetz" (Agricultural adjustment law), and other methods as well in which the merging of land and buildings was compulsory. Often these methods are very complex and difficult and may take many years: both sides often protest and judicial action is required for a final solution.

Automated processes have been developed and put in place to legally secure the archiving of land register documents as well as to speed up the processing of registration applications or enquiries.

Besides improving the contents of the ownership data, the technology for processing the ownership registration has also advanced. The states choose different paths; different methods are tried within the individual German states and an extensive potential wealth of experience for different solutions is acquired.

In Germany land register and land ownership cadastre are separate. Because the same details about the landowners are found in both registers, using an "on-line" link any changes made to the land register can also be made automatically to the cadastre in a few seconds. This has already been used for several years in Saxony.

· Farmers starting up their own businesses were to receive, in exchange for their own land parcels, land parcels of equal value and size. In this respect, it was particularly important to evaluate soil quality. When only lower quality land could be offered, the value gap had to be bridged with the supply of larger parcels.

· Land was redistributed as necessary to increase the effectiveness of agricultural production. This redistribution was effected through a land redistribution process ("Flurbereinigungsverfahren") which often requires several years.

· In many cases through the exchange process it was possible to achieve merged ownership of the land and the agricultural buildings sited on it. The ideal case of voluntary land exchange often does not materialize. This occurs when the owner of the building has no land to offer in exchange. In this case the land value is determined (through a standardized procedure) and the owner of the building must pay to the landowner the amount of money corresponding to the determined value.

After almost 10 years of unity a positive situation exists in Germany. The land and real estate market is flourishing. The extensive supply means that land prices have fallen to realistic values. The greater part of separate building and land ownership cases has been solved. This allows owners of buildings to obtain mortgages and thus undertake essential investments.

Private licensed surveying companies are capable of carrying out the required cadastral surveys in short periods of time. However, in the state surveying departments the time required for transfer of data to land ownership cadastral documents is still too long.

The quality of the land ownership cadastre has improved with every cadastral survey carried out under current standards. The land ownership cadastre thus forms the basis for several information systems. The land ownership cadastre, complete with land parcel boundaries, land parcel numbers and the buildings as its most important components, also forms the basis for many specialist information systems. Our society is increasingly developing into an information society: many specialist information systems are being developed, i.e. regarding electricity, sewage, drinking water distribution, telephone cables etc. It is always important to know the ownership of the land on which such infrastructures are located. Thus it is obvious that the land ownership cadastre is always a vitally important source of information for many specialist information systems.

Some conclusions can be drawn regarding the land ownership cadastre and land register reorganization in East Germany in the last ten years following the conclusion of the transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy. The basic statements of these conclusions are of great value for the eastern and southern European countries which are also undergoing a similar transformation process.

Laws to solve possession and property problems must be created rapidly. Transitional laws, which are in place only for a short time, can be acceptable. The step by step improvement of laws is also possible.

Many new specialists will have to be trained for the land ownership cadastre and land registration departments. The personnel should receive further training and qualification. The need for these specialists is greater in a market economy than in a planned economy. This is because there is increased demand for surveying work for the continuous land dealings.

Small and medium-sized private surveying companies, licensed for cadastral surveying, are very well suited for cadastral work in their local area. It can be clearly proven that private surveying companies can carry out the increased surveying work with flexibility and effectiveness. These small businesses can also adapt rapidly to changing market conditions. Surveying offices can acquire work from different states. This ensures that fair competition exists between the various private companies, with resultant benefits for surveying offices customers as well as for contractors. It provides an incentive for private companies to continuously improve their services and prices.

The private surveying engineers need a strong professional organisation that can protect their area of work from others lacking appropriate land tenure experience (e.g. architects, building engineers or information specialists). Indeed, such a strong organization is also needed to pursue their political interests regarding the state cadastral authorities and the evolving development of their profession.

In general, for work such as the administration of cadastral documents, people consider the state cadastral authorities more appropriate than privately licensed surveying engineers.

Clear regulations are necessary to form a basis for the cooperation between private companies and public authorities in cadastral work. Only with regulations which clarify respective responsibilities will private offices and federal cadastral offices be able to cooperate effectively.

Automated systems should be employed in the administration of land registration documents: this allows the use of remote data searching systems only by authorized persons; furthermore, this should speed up the process. In Europe there are different opinions and regulations concerning data protection of entries in the registry, that is, whether the registers should be open to the public or not. At any rate, only authorised users can retrieve data from the registers and such data-related interest is to be proved. Notaries, licensed surveying offices, local authorities as well as potential buyers should belong to the group of authorised persons.

Land market transparency should be secured. It is very important that the land market is transparent. Only in this manner can a false development concerning land prices be prevented. In Germany the law prescribes that every change of land from one owner to another be accredited by a notary. The notaries are then obliged to transmit copy of the deed to a land valuation board. This land valuation board inspects all deeds and analyses the land prices and other statistics. Annually a price contour map is developed and published. This helps, through comparisons, to inform owners and potential buyers about the current land value. This value is not binding because the price can be negotiated by seller and buyer. Nevertheless it gives a representation of land values in the region.

Another important rule in Germany is that the notaries must furnish a copy of the estate deed to the local community. The communes have priority in land transactions. This assures that the deed shows the correct price. If for instance the seller and buyer agree for an official low price in order to save on the real estate transfer tax, it would be possible for the communes to buy the property at that low price. This would be disastrous for the seller. It is also possible to fix a priority for the neighbour. Only such measures can ensure that correct prices are entered in the deeds. This guarantees correct taxation and balanced property prices.

The transition from a planned to a market economy offered many learning experiences. In the land cadastre and land register field many experts were involved in finding solutions to these problems in Germany. These experiences and the laws and regulations developed in Germany for the transition process would be very valuable for the transition process in East European countries and in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

German experts have not been strongly represented in projects in transition countries because they have had to address similar problems with Germany. In doing so, the new German states have acquired valuable experience concerning the reorganization of the system for securing ownership and the settling of post-transition ownership issues. There are various new laws and regulations which could be of interest for the effective solution of problems in East European countries. We are interested and ready to work together through various forms of cooperation.

It is definitely necessary that all western advisors work together in the interests of respective lands which are in the process of transformation and that they follow a standardised concept.

5.5 IMIS: The Integrated Municipal Information System (Italy)

Municipalities (known as "Communes" in certain countries) are in general the smallest administrative units. Nevertheless, their role in public services is growing increasingly and extending far beyond their traditional duties such as service supply (i.e., sanitation, water supply, public lighting, sewer, road maintenance etc.)

In this framework, some administration tools that are typically state-owned will be transferred to local governments: one of the most important items of this process is the cadastre. The cadastre is, by common definition, the means by which public administrations can collect taxes over real estate and land. Now, since most of this tax income goes directly to municipalities, it is natural that the cadastre should be managed by municipalities and not by the central state.

Of course to do so, municipalities should have the right equipment which, in the case of cadastre, is ultimately a fully functional LIS.

Databases and Land Information Systems technology has been defined as fundamental for the resolution of most of the constraints still affecting cadastral and registry systems in CEECs.

Information systems like IMIS can contribute to avoiding some constraints arising from the lack of integration in databases. IMIS is a "Municipality oriented LIS", suitable for municipal management and decision-making. It is an integrated system (i.e., it comprises several application modules and is based on the interchange of data between different geographic and cadastral databases).

Its outstanding feature is that it integrates different archives into one easy-to-use application. Modern LIS now use the "data warehouse" techniques to enhance their ability in managing graphical and alphanumerical data derived from different sources and stored in different archive formats. Moreover, the implementation of networking ability over the Internet allows new LIS, such as IMIS, to have remote access to archives.

This means that archives can be located in different agencies/administrations. In this sense, a system capable of managing data in different archives could help to resolve the problem of multiple registries in land administration institutions. The most essential function during the development of IMIS was the implementation of the "Municipality-Cadastre interchange protocol". The transfer of cadastral responsibilities to municipalities is currently one of the priorities of state policy in Italy. This is not a fast process from the juridical and technical point of view. As a result, for several years in the future the cadastre will be still held by the central administration through its local offices. From this consideration was born the need to link the cadastral offices (i.e. map archives, fiscal archives and deed registry offices) with municipalities.

This interchange function of IMIS allows users to undertake any kind of cadastral operations (ownership changes, subdivisions, consolidations, new building declarations and so on) from municipal offices without having physical access to cadastral offices.

Of course, the interchange of such data requires strict control and security in transactions. Very recently, a new law has made it possible to use the "double key digital signature" as a security standard for these kinds of formal transactions.

IMIS is able to manage large-scale cadastral maps such as those derived from high-resolution satellite imagery. Data collected by new satellite missions (with resolution up to 80 cm) are definitely suitable for the generation of new cadastral cartography and/or for updating outdated maps. IMIS, in this case, can provide a full set of functions for cartography drawing over orthophotos.

Moreover, IMIS can be used for purposes that are not specifically cadastral. Because of its ability to manage different data formats, IMIS can be used for preparing graphic presentations useful for civil protection, environment monitoring, natural risk analysis and urban planning.

IMIS is a customisable LIS. Input data can be entered from different sources and output data can be provided in different formats. In other words, IMIS is not intended as commercial package but rather as a service. Its structure is based on well known commercial applications for databases (MS Access^TM) and cartography management (MapInfo^TM); however, IMIS is not a "restricted" product. The lesson learned from experience is that requirements for a cadastral management system vary widely in different countries and even within a country, and that these requirements can vary over time. The philosophy of IMIS is that once the system has been installed and tested, a well-trained staff will be able to modify and customise it according to changing demand.

Local governments will be responsible for large parts of cadastral systems in coming years. New technologies for LIS are fundamental to keep the cadastre functional and updated.

Municipal-oriented LIS are now available and can be exported from Western countries to CEECs without limitation. Their cost effectiveness is easy to understand when considering:

· The low cost of software (based on commercial GIS applications) and hardware (cadastral LIS can be easily operated at PC level).

· The money and time saving resulting from a full integration of archives, especially when they are held by different administrations in different locations.

· The opportunity to draw new cadastral maps (in the absence of cartography) or the possibility to update old maps at a fraction of the cost of aerophotogrammetrical mapping, with the further benefit of continuously monitoring the territory.

· Nowadays, access to new information technology is no longer a matter of national security nor is the GNP of a country as crucial as before. The often heard statement that certain software applications are "too advanced" for countries in transition does not make sense: thanks to its low cost, information technology can be used extensively and is a factor, not a consequence, of economic growth. Moreover, in the case of CEECs, skillful personnel are available, thanks to long experience in aerospace and military hi-tech industries.

It is necessary to emphasise that the implementation of modern LIS in countries in transition does not consist in the mere supply of software and hardware. Of extreme importance is the provision of cadastral staff training, not just on technical operations, but also through courses on public service management for full functionality of LIS (i.e. information desk for the public, remote access to LIS for registry/cadastre consultation, establishment of a digital signature authority, etc.)

Within this framework, it is possible to say that many activities relating to the cadastral system can easily be assigned to the private sector. The outsourcing concept is definitely suitable for cadastral services. This is particularly true for technical activities, but the private sector could also manage the entire process as well, since it is possible to find a way to self-finance cadastral services by eliminating much of the tax evasion that occurs when the cadastre is outdated.

5.6 The Commuter Project in the context of SIGNuM (Metropolitan Numeric Geographic Information Service) (Italy)

The Province of Bologna has entered into institutional agreements about planning activities which constitute the "core" of the new planning process in the Metropolitan area. The signing of the agreements is the result of a lengthy and deep consultation and preparatory work. The evaluation of the effects of metropolitan expansion on the environmental and functional system of the province has been the main subject of this work which has been based on a Territorial Information System coupled with GIS technology and suitable simulation and decision support models. A total of more than 1200 expanding metropolitan areas have been evaluated. Applications have been implemented in support of the planning process and to provide services to Municipalities:

· a predictive and simulative model (SIMT) for monitoring traffic flows and for evaluating different alternatives through comparison of traffic indexes, i.e. congestion, vehicles/time and vehicles/distance;

· a web-based platform (COMMUTER - EP 22362) to provide services regarding cadastral and master plan GIS data capable of performing complex queries and of issuing data-related outputs.

This paper describes the main features of the Commuter Project and its role in the context of SIGNuM.

The Province of Bologna has begun employing GIS technology more than ten years ago, but only recently has achieved a global knowledge of this technological tool. After a first important phase regarding improving its data, (an ongoing event), applications have been carried out in accordance with institutional aims.

The work involved in creating the "Municipal Master Plans Mosaic" is part of the activities aimed at strengthening control capabilities and land planning. Such activities are the responsibility of the Bologna Province and of the future "Metropolitan City". The "SIMT" is capable of providing a fundamental service in support of local land planning, illustrating results of certain choices made in the context of the transport infrastructure system. Lastly, the "Commuter" platform represents a great opportunity to offer centrally managed important services to the Municipalities and the whole community utilizing GIS technology.

The Commuter Project is part of the European Esprit Project to promote research and development activities in the context of computer science technologies. In particular, the Commuter Project aims at developing a system which simplifies the management and updating of georeferenced data. Due to the huge quantity of data handled, public authorities are planning to provide distributed services in their jurisdictions. In this context, georeferenced data have a primary role.

Thus, the objective of "Commuter" at the EC level is the creation of an EDP platform that defines and allows the remote updating of geographical archives, guaranteeing a high level of security. The expected outcome is a generalised infrastructure which, by means of computer science technologies, allows organization of a data updating process in different institutional contexts. "Commuter" has been developed with reference to the different needs and realities in France, Germany and Italy.

Currently, communication between databases created and maintained by different institutions is difficult and sometimes completely lacking. A primary necessity is to have a unique language for exchanging data and information. One of the main aims of the project is the integration of different databases in order to make this remarkably informative framework available to different users; in fact, it would allow users to perform complex queries on data belonging to different information layers. It introduces a new connection key, i.e. geographic coordinates. Moreover, "Commuter" introduces a new way of updating cartographic data, which is performed through three phases: data extraction from the original database, forwarding of the updating proposal, and interpretation and translation into computer language.

With reference to the Italian context, the "Commuter" aims at making the Public Administration instruments capable of facilitating cadastral data management by analysing also its important effects on the services supplied to the citizens. Therefore, it is necessary to facilitate the relationship between local authorities which contribute to the management and use of cadastral data and to supply a better service to all citizens in the issue of requested urban and cadastral certifications and territorial data. This applies in particular to the Territorial Cadastral Office, the Province and the Municipalities.

The platform, defined at the Community level, carried out through the definition of a new language for updating cartographic data (TTML - Transformation and Transaction Management Language), is applied to the Italian cadastral archives on an experimental basis. The innovation offers the possibility of performing direct updating of cadastral data located in the Municipalities from remote sites. Anyone using standard procedures can transmit modified data to the Cadastral officers who, in turn, can update their data.

Promising conditions for development of the Project are offered by the Bologna provincial area, thanks to the availability of digital cadastral data for the whole province and to an agreement signed between the Cadastral Office and the Local Authorities to provide updated cadastral data at a low cost.

The architecture of the system is constituted by a Territorial Service Centre (CST) where a copy of the cadastral and urban data for the three pilot Municipalities is stored. At the CST is located the server of an intranet network, to which the three Municipalities are connected by means of their three computer clients. The communication is guaranteed by a dedicated network or ISDN connection at 64 Kbps with TCP/IP protocol.

Olivetti Ricerca, the technical partner of the Project, has developed a prototype of the Italian application, available on Internet at the following address: http://cst.provincia.bologna.it.

The prototype provides different possibilities, from cartographic navigation to data extraction and from data consultation to their updating. The detailed features of each section of the system are listed and described below.

The application, sited on an NT server, has been developed by means of VisualBasic and MapObjects IMS as regards the cartographic section. The alphanumeric data are managed by a RDBMS Oracle 7.3 for NT. ArcInfo, the GIS searching motor for the experimentation of the updating process, is sited on a UNIX Sun Ultra1 workstation.

The activities carried out in the GIS sector make the Province of Bologna a meaningful example in the national context. Future actions to be undertaken will be to find the appropriate resources and to improve its organisational ability to produce effective services for the entire community. Lack of knowledge about the potentiality of the new technologies is perhaps the main obstacle to their use and dissemination. This gap needs to be bridged so that the great possibilities offered by these new technologies can be fully exploited.

5.7 Considerations on the value added services of the Netherlands' Kadaster

The Netherlands' Kadaster, in place since 1812, is a governmental unit. In 1994 it gained a degree of independence in the public sector instituted by a separate law. Since then the Kadaster has been organized as a large private enterprise, operating with a range of instruments common to a successful private enterprise, such as marketing, human resources development, financial accounting and management control. However, the Netherlands' Kadaster is still under government control: the Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment is responsible for controlling the corporate strategy including the financial forecasts of the Kadaster, always for a period of five years in advance.

Recently in the Netherlands the Parliament discussed the privatisation of utilities. The outcome of this discussion was that some of the utilities' functions like the distribution of gas and electricity could be privatised but the distribution of water should remain under direct government control. In 1994 a more or less similar discussion took place in the national parliament but this time about the privatisation of the Netherlands' Kadaster. The outcome was that "the supply of information on land is considered fundamental for the physical, psychological and economic welfare of people and institutions". Implicitly this statement includes a clear demand on public-service organisations like the Netherlands' Kadaster to formulate and execute a corporate policy to strive for an excellent performance not from a point of view of competition but from the orientation of societal and customer needs to create the required and possible societal and economic value added.

The demands of users/customers do not differ essentially from country to country and include mainly: digital land information (administrative/cartographic) that is updated, fully reliable, complete, rapidly accessible, susceptible for customisation; it should incorporate descriptive and cartographic data, well harmonised to other types of records, be economic and suitable for use within the customer's working procedures. We could add that the products and services should be made available on a national basis, be uniform, and preferably delivered to the customer's desk. Besides all this, the customer would like to meet a service-oriented attitude.

Often marketing is seen only as an instrument for private and commercial businesses. The basis for this point of view can be found in the reasons underlying marketing: that is, an instrument to support the continuity and profitability of an organisation in the market sector from an attitude of customer orientation.

The marketing concept however offers the same opportunities for governmental organisations like the Netherlands' Kadaster that provide specific products to all kinds of customers, although continuity seems rather secure from a governmental monopoly position. The profitability of Kadaster cannot be defined in terms of a financial profit for possible shareholders but as a financial profit for the beneficiaries of the organisation, i.e., the citizens and professional users by offering them the lowest possible fees and prices for the products and services. And from a social point of view, in modern market economies the self-confident citizens and professional users of governmental services expect also from the government agency like Kadaster a customer-oriented behaviour and responsiveness.

Based on the legal framework in which the activities of Kadaster are clearly defined and on the Kadaster's general strategy, position and mission, the marketing concept has been developed on a strategic (marketing strategy) level and then on an operational (marketing operations) level.

On the strategic level the demands of the customer categories have been described, the opportunities and threats of the present environment analysed, along with the current strengths and weaknesses of the Cadastre. Based on this analysis, important key-success factors have been identified for use as criteria in measuring the success of the marketing strategy and activities. Examples of such key-success factors could be: the quality of the data, the feeling of the customers about getting value for their money, customised products and services and marketing communication (customer involvement).

On the operational level the marketing strategy has been worked out in clear plans for the future of all categories of customers. Specific products/services for specific customers, the so-called product/market combinations (pmc's), have been defined. These pmc's are expected to be detailed by using the so-called marketing mix of 5p's: (1) the place of the product (method of distribution, i.e. by mail, internet, office, etc.), (2) the product itself (data-quality specifications), (3) promotion (product brochures, exhibitions, face-to-face customer contact, press publications, etc.), (4) the personnel (marketing, account and relation managers) and, last but not least, (5) the price of the product. The prices of the products of the Netherlands' Kadaster are evaluated yearly. Because of increased efficiency and the strong economic performance of the Netherlands in recent years the Kadaster was able to cut tariffs by over 50%.

Currently the Netherlands' Kadaster is using a number of databases to facilitate its current tasks (i.e., storage and supply of legal and cadastral information on land and buildings, assistance to rural land development and maintenance of the national geodetic network):

The Netherlands' Kadaster is a candidate to adopt the present responsibilities of the Ministry of Defence for producing and distributing small scale topographical maps.

The transfer of real rights on land and buildings in the Netherlands is disciplined by the Civil Code, which defines a closed system of rights in rem. The lawfully defined rights in rem include: ownership, condominium, long lease, usufruct, rights of possession, mortgage, attachment and encumbrance. Based on the general principle of speciality the rights in rem are related to non-ambiguously defined land parcels. The real rights situation of a specific parcel can be very complex due to the combinations of different real rights and encumbrances. A real right enters into force from the moment the transaction deed is recorded at the Kadaster office and is based on the general principle of publicity.

Conveyancing of real rights is regulated by private law. Private parties involved in a transaction (seller and buyer) are responsible for the contents of the deed, although through the notary public. The notary public - a free professional but appointed by the Queen and under the rule of the Notary Law - is responsible for drawing up the deed. Often in the process of establishing a transaction of real rights the notary public will check the legal situation with the Kadaster administration. Ten minutes before and immediately after the signing of the deed the notary performs the final checks. Something might have been changed and great interests and large amounts of money might be involved. The Kadaster in its responsibility as land registrar checks the formal requests for recording of the deed and updates the automated land register and the cadastral map with the new information. In the whole real rights transaction process the notary public and the Kadaster have an interdependent relationship in a kind of "value chain" to the private parties. For the movement of real rights in the Netherlands the notary public could be considered as the front office and the Kadaster as the back office.

The importance of updating and accessibility seems to grow day by day following the implementation of information technology in the more or less integrated business processes of Kadaster and the notary public: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have in fact become indispensable. The emerging possibilities of information and communication technology prompt a need for well thought out and applicable ICT re-engineering and business process redesign. This generates challenging tension because at the same time the pressure on the day-to-day production processes (accessibility, quality, efficiency) is already strongly increasing. In the near future we expect the implementation of electronic delivery of notarial deeds to be checked by the Kadaster which will use optical character recognition technology to analyse the documents submitted.

A person buying a piece of land, a building, a house or an apartment in the Netherlands usually needs a mortgage to finance it. Because of a strong economic performance, low interest rates and other factors, recently the prices of land and buildings have increased substantially. For this reason it has also become possible to establish a second or third mortgage to finance reconstruction or renovation activities. The interest on mortgages is tax deductible and this encourages the buying of property and mortgaging for renovation and reconstruction. Access to mortgage credit is only possible with reliable real rights registration to provide the financial institutions with evidence of ownership as provided by the Kadaster.

The mobility of an increasing number of people in the Netherlands is rather high. Once every six-seven years ownership of houses and apartments changes. The number of self-owned houses (i.e. cadastral parcels) is increasing rapidly due to new built-up areas and the sale of properties of housing corporations to renters, which is based on a governmental policy to encourage self-owned housing. (In 1999 in the Netherlands for the first time the number of self-owned houses exceeded that of rented houses).

The Kadaster is responsible for facilitating the increasing movement in real property rights by a continuous monitoring of the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of its business processes, services and information products. Some figures:

Since the nineteen twenties, land owners, mostly farmers, have been exchanging land in rural areas. Formerly the purpose of these exchanges was mainly to achieve a more efficient operational farm management. Nowadays there are many more motives involved in rural land development. The aim of the Netherlands agricultural policy is to encourage developing a liveable countryside, with enough economic competitiveness, social cohesion, ecological sustainability and cultural identity.

At the same time we have to consider that agriculture in the Netherlands is becoming less important in terms of labour employment, area of land use and contribution to the GDP. The number of farms in the Netherlands decreased from 125,000 in 1991 to 104,000 in 1997. Thus, besides agricultural motives, protection of nature reserves and landscape, recreation and improvement of infrastructure also play a main role in rural land development. The influence of this trend is visible in the rural areas. The time of only straight lines for efficient farming seems to be over. The rural landscape nowadays is becoming more various and effective. The Kadaster is playing its valuable role in the process of land development.

In the Netherlands the provinces are responsible for the policy-making and the allocation of rural land development projects. This responsibility has been decentralised recently from the state level (Ministry of Agriculture) to the provincial level.

At the start of a project a local land commission is appointed, consisting of representatives of the agricultural sector as well as other representatives. Most often the chairman is a mayor, a dike grave or another representative of the local administration. An adviser of the Kadaster will always be added to the commission. The average size of a rural land development project is about 5,000 hectares.

The Kadaster is responsible for process management in rural land development projects. Maps are drawn up on which is represented the economic value of the land. Using these maps the involved parties are asked to define their requirements and wishes. They have to consider preconditions of nature, landscape and infrastructure, elements that have been decided in the preparatory phase of the project. All wishes, requirements, and alternatives are finally stored in the databases of the Kadaster. By using dedicated software a reallotment plan is produced and discussed with the parties involved. A rural land development plan in the Netherlands could take about 15-20 years from preparation to finalisation.

During this period a high number of objections arise with respect to possible solutions. The Kadaster tries to resolve these objections for the Rural Land Commission by offering alternative solutions. Final disputes are settled by the Court. The Kadaster, in cooperation with a notary public, prepares the deed in which the new real property rights situation in the project area is laid down. After recording the deed in the Public Registers the new administrative and cartographic situation legally enters into force.

The landscape of the Netherlands is changing despite the diminished support of the parliament for deep landscape inroads. The Netherlands however, is positioned on important European transport corridors. These corridors are based on a road, rail and water infrastructures network. In the coming years a number of discontinuities and bottlenecks in the main road, rail and water connections network will have to be solved. Also much energy will have to be expended in the improvement of existing infrastructures to increase present capacity, i.e. partial broadening and improvement of livelihood (accessibility, security, environment). These activities need to be supported by surveys and maps of the different private and public organisations involved in the planning and implementation activities. The Kadaster is offering basic geodetic services.

For the precise survey of objects benchmarks are required. In the Netherlands within the triangulation system about 6,000 benchmarks for surveying works are available. The main points of this system are found mostly on church towers. These benchmarks are measured with millimetric precision and are regularly controlled by Kadaster surveyors. Urban developers and planners require updated information. Fortunately aberrations do not occur often in the Netherlands. Even the small earthquake in the south of the Netherlands in 1991 did not cause such aberrations.

For surveying and mapping the Global Positioning System (GPS) has become increasingly important. At present part of the geodetic control points (with distances of 10-15 km) in the Netherlands are being adapted for use with GPS instruments. These points together form the GPS-kernel network. By using this network GPS users can easily transfer their data to the other benchmarks of the triangulation system.

An active GPS Reference System (AGRS) has been available since 1997. Five reference stations record continuously the signals of satellites. The Kadaster computer centre collects, checks and distributes the data through internet. Using these data a surveyor can control or define the position with centimetric precision by using only one GPS receiver.

In the Netherlands taxes related to land and buildings provide a substantial part of the government budget, especially at the local level. About 2,000 billion Dfl. of the government budget at the state level are generated by taxes. The contribution of income tax related to land and buildings property is 1.5 billion Dfl. (1%) and that of transfer tax (6% of the value of conveyance) 2.8 billion Dfl. (2%).

The responsibility for the valuation and taxation of land and buildings has been decentralised to the third level of government, the municipalities. The total budget of the municipalities is about 8 billion Dfl., 50% of which (about 4 billion Dfl.) is financed by the land and building tax.

Waterboards in the Netherlands are functional lower government bodies responsible for the regional and local control of quality and quantity of water reserves, including protection against flooding and control of the level and quality of surface water. Their budget is about 3.5 billion Dfl., of which 0.7 billion Dfl. (28%) are covered by the local waterboard tax related to land and buildings.

The contribution of the Kadaster land administration to land and building taxation is clear for all those concerned. The legal status of land and buildings is the input for a reliable tax assessment. It is not possible to perform the delineation of valuation-objects without basic geodetic information on the cadastral parcels, their size and features. Reliable valuation based on economic values can only be performed by comparing and using the purchase prices that are recorded from the transaction deeds into the cadastral databases.

The Kadaster provides support to the 570 municipalities and the 60 waterboards by informing them periodically (mostly monthly) of the changes in the ownership situation and about the changes of boundaries of cadastral parcels. In many cases these boundaries also are the boundaries of the valuation-object. If not, the Kadaster, in competition with private companies, is able to support the Municipalities by surveying the boundaries of the valuation-object. At the beginning of each year the municipalities and waterboards are especially eager to receive the Kadaster information of the previous year to be able to send the taxation assessments to the taxpayer to assure payment of taxes as soon as possible and to avoid possible interest losses. In the past years the Kadaster was able to send them the required information before mid-January, based on mutual convenience between Kadaster and municipalities and waterboards.

Because of the increasing use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in business processes of private and governmental organisations, the Kadaster is playing an increasingly important role of support to these organizations by providing them with customised data-sets derived from the cadastral databases. An example of such a product is the Address Coordinates of the Netherlands (ACN). For all postal addresses existing in the Netherlands the Kadaster provided digitized coordinates utilizing cadastral mapping.

The postal addresses already existed in the Kadaster administrative database and are maintained through regular updating from the Postal Services in the Netherlands. The postal address is of main importance, for instance, in the case of real estate agents as an entry to the cadastral information.

· Emergency and Security

· Transport

· Marketing

· Planning

· Environment

· Police, fire brigade, ambulance call-centres

· Car navigation, Fleet management

· Direct mail

· Utilities, Gas Stations

· Environmental Impact Analysis

Regarding the financial sector statistical information on development of purchase prices of land and buildings and on development of market shares concerning mortgages is important.

Concerning soil protection, the relationship to individual cadastral parcels is strong. The Soil Protection Act mandates that government decisions on the necessity of soil cleaning are designated in the Kadaster's land register. If the draft Act on the registration of Encumbrances and restrictions according to Public Law enter into force, more environmental aspects will be recorded.

· Mortgage business

· Real Estate business

· Rural land development

· National Planning

· Universities

· Banks, Insurance companies

· Agents, Project Developers

· Agriculture

· Central Institute of Statistics

· Research

The growth in value added of the Kadaster is strongly dependent, on the one hand, on its capability to be a leading organisation by keeping in touch with all kinds of stakeholders (i.e. the willingness to change) and, on the other hand, on its capability for continuity by assessing its core competence as a governmental agency with high skills in efficient collection and distribution of information related to real rights. Co-operation and continuous bilateral mutual adjustments are absolutely required to find the appropriate balance in the present fast moving business environments.

As regards mutual interests adjustment, structural meetings are organised with several customer organisations like the Royal Notaries Professional Organisation, the Union of Dutch Municipalities, the Union of Waterboards and the Union of Real Estate Agents. These organisations are also represented in the User Council which is involved in the Kadaster strategy developments.

In the National land Policy Forum the Kadaster is meeting all kinds of involved private and public organisations to discuss issues like the development and implementation of standards. Co-operation with the Technical University of Delft, the Agricultural University of Wageningen and the International Institute of Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences in Enschede ensures that Kadaster is well-known with the state of the art of scientific developments.

For more than 160 years the Kadaster has played a valuable and important role in the Netherlands. Since its establishment the Kadaster has paid important contributions to the legal security of people, government and private companies, supplying information and professional skills in the fields of real rights, taxation, rural land development, geodesy and other sectors.

At first sight nothing seems to be changing. The scope of work however changes rapidly in view of the fast moving economy and the growth of the population. The whole society is becoming more complex. The influence of information and communication technology is only at an early stage and more and more organisations seem to be getting increasingly dependent on Kadaster information for their daily work.

Through a corporate policy based on customer responsiveness, efficiency (cost control and implementation of ICT) and quality the Kadaster expects to maintain its capabilities and value added in its familiar work fields like legal security, rural land development and geodetic services and to build up skills and competencies for value added in developing fields of work like business support and co-operation.

Products and services	Pricing approach
1. Statutory products and services	Legislated prices
2. Existing infrastructure	Incremental cost recovery
3. Future infrastructure	Partial cost recovery
4. Standard cadastral products	Market value pricing
5. Retail products	Market value pricing

Revenues		Expenses
Provincial	24.8	Assessment	12.4
Municipal	5.8	Real property	8.0
Other clients	8.7	Personal property	1.8
Other	0.5	Land infrastructure	2.4
		Service delivery	15.7
Total Revenues	39.8	Total Expenses	40.3

Bertinoro III
International Land Tenure School and High-Level Technical Seminar

Chapter 5: Comparative experiences from other countries

5.1 Policies for local (municipal) government: Land and assets (Australia)

5.2 Land information systems and good governance (Canada)

5.3 Development of information models to evaluate, measure, and manage risk impacts of Government policies on agriculture (Canada)

5.4 System management in land tenure: Experiences in land registration and property management in Eastern Germany after reunification (Germany)

5.5 IMIS: The Integrated Municipal Information System (Italy)

5.6 The Commuter Project in the context of SIGNuM (Metropolitan Numeric Geographic Information Service) (Italy)

5.7 Considerations on the value added services of the Netherlands' Kadaster

Bertinoro III International Land Tenure School and High-Level Technical Seminar

Chapter 5: Comparative experiences from other countries

5.1 Policies for local (municipal) government: Land and assets (Australia)

5.2 Land information systems and good governance (Canada)

5.3 Development of information models to evaluate, measure, and manage risk impacts of Government policies on agriculture (Canada)

5.4 System management in land tenure: Experiences in land registration and property management in Eastern Germany after reunification (Germany)

5.5 IMIS: The Integrated Municipal Information System (Italy)

5.6 The Commuter Project in the context of SIGNuM (Metropolitan Numeric Geographic Information Service) (Italy)

5.7 Considerations on the value added services of the Netherlands' Kadaster

Bertinoro III
International Land Tenure School and High-Level Technical Seminar