Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) is the unique identifier for every addressable location across the UK.

An addressable location may be any kind of building, or it may be an object that might not have a ‘normal' address – such as a bus shelter or an electricity substation for example. UPRNs provide every property (or object) with a consistent identifier throughout its lifecycle, from planning through to demolition.

Unique and authoritative, the UPRN is like a National Insurance number for physical objects. Everything in Great Britain can be identified with a UPRN.

This authoritative ‘code' can be used to create trusted connections between disparate sources of information sharing a common characteristic: location. Even if there are other issues with the datasets, the UPRN is a simple and unique reference point.

Crucially, when organisations add the UPRN to any kind of data, they can link matching records in different databases together. This means fewer errors in data exchange and communication, but far greater efficiency in all kinds of operations.

Many technologies can be used to share the UPRN, including spreadsheets, databases, XML/GML schema and linked data. Groups already using the UPRN include local and central government bodies, the emergency services, insurance providers, and utility companies.

The Open Standards Board, via Government Digital Service (GDS), mandated that from 1st July 2021, the UPRN and USRN are the public sector standard for referencing and sharing property and street information. This means that all new public sector systems and projects that include address and/or street data should include the identifiers.

The Unique Property Reference Number – the unique identifier for every addressable location – is key to almost everything that’s delivered or achieved by councils.

Everything that local government does happens somewhere, be it housing a homeless person, collecting someone's bin or providing support to a family in difficulty. Precise location information is essential for councils to deliver services to the residents they serve.

The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) should be fundamental to all data matching and, therefore, to all data analysis. This would ensure that disparate data sets and innovative applications of data can be blended to provide insight and understanding about residents and businesses, which is needed to deliver area-based services effectively on the ground. Every authority has common focal points, such as housing, education, welfare and highways. When the UPRN is added to each siloed department’s data, the whole organisation benefits. It becomes a much simpler exercise to link inter-departmental information.

Unique Property Reference Numbers is a standard that contain unique numerical identifiers:
- UPRNs are the unique identifiers for every addressable location in Great Britain
The UPRN along with their associated grid references, are available as open data under Open Government License (OGL) from the Ordnance Survey Data Hub. Further information, such as address or building classifications are available from Ordnance Survey products under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement.

Systems, services and applications that store or publish data sets containing property and street information must use the UPRN and USRN identifiers

Protecting our population, improving health - using UPRNs to transform health and save lives

Link to a session at the 2023 GeoPlace Annual Conference about the use of UPRNs in health and social care