Is Pointer BS 7666 compliant?
A. A Technical Address Model Specification (TAMS) has been published, on the Pointer website (http://www.pointer-ni.gov.uk), which specifies the fields held in the Pointer database. The TAMS was originally developed to support and accommodate the matching of diverse address datasets from Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, the Valuation & Lands Agency and Royal Mail. As such, it allowed room for flexibility on the definition of address objects such as locality and thoroughfare. This automated data matching process has now been completed, and as a result, the TAMS is being revised to bring these definitions fully into line with conventional addressing terminology, including BS7666-3:2000. The TAMS is not however a specification for any of the address dataset products which will be generated from the Pointer database. For example, the current TAMS specifies a relationship between Primary Addressable Objects and Secondary Addressable Objects which does not reflect the real world, and is