Contact Us

A Community Interest Company (CIC) is a type of limited company designed for organisations that want to use their profits and assets for the public good. CICs are regulated by the CIC Regulator and must demonstrate that their activities benefit the community. Unlike charities, CICs can trade freely and pay reasonable salaries, but profits must be reinvested into the organisation’s social purpose rather than distributed to shareholders.

Geoxphere Ltd is the company that develops and maintains the technology behind Parish Online and XMAP. Local Authority Technology CIC is a sibling organisation that delivers Parish Online services to town, parish and community councils. All revenue generated through the CIC is reinvested into services and community benefit projects rather than being distributed as profit. The two organisations share staff and infrastructure, but operate under separate governance structures with different legal purposes.

No. Local Authority Technology CIC is a Community Interest Company, not a registered charity. While both structures exist to deliver public benefit, a CIC can trade commercially and employ staff in a way that is more flexible than a charity. Our CIC structure allows us to deliver professional digital services to councils while ensuring that the financial benefit flows back to the public sector rather than to private shareholders.

Revenue generated through Local Authority Technology CIC is reinvested in three ways: maintaining and improving the Parish Online platform, delivering free and subsidised community projects such as the Free GOV.UK Email Programme and Community Map Scotland, and supporting the GOV.UK Switching Fund which helps councils migrate to professional GOV.UK domains. Our annual CIC36 reports, published on this site, provide a full account of how funds have been used each year.

Our social value work focuses on improving digital access and capability at the most local tier of UK government. This includes providing free GOV.UK email addresses to parish and town councils who cannot afford commercial solutions, funding community mapping projects that give residents access to local geographic data, and supporting councils through the transition to professional GOV.UK domain names. We measure our impact through the number of councils supported, services delivered free of charge, and the estimated cost saving to the public sector compared to commercial alternatives.

The Free GOV.UK Email Programme provides parish and town council clerks with a professional GOV.UK email address at no cost. Many smaller councils rely on personal email addresses for official correspondence, which raises concerns about data security, professionalism and public trust. Through this programme, councils receive a properly configured GOV.UK email account, hosted securely and maintained by Parish Online. The programme is funded through CIC revenues and has supported over 400 councils across England, Scotland and Wales.

The GOV.UK Switching Fund helps parish and town councils migrate from non-GOV.UK domain names to a professional GOV.UK web address. Councils operating on .com, .org or other commercial domains can apply for supported migration to a GOV.UK domain, including website transfer and DNS configuration. The fund covers the costs associated with migration that might otherwise prevent smaller councils from making the switch. Eligibility criteria and application details are available on the Support section of the Parish Online website.

Community Map Scotland is a project delivered in partnership with the Improvement Service and Planning Aid Scotland to provide community councils in Scotland with access to professional mapping tools. Scotland’s community council tier has historically had limited access to GIS technology. This project extends the Parish Online mapping platform to Scottish community councils, providing asset management, boundary mapping and local place plan planning capabilities. The project is funded through Local Authority Technology CIC and delivered in partnership with Scottish public sector bodies.

Annual accounts are published on Companies House. Our CIC36 annual reports are published on this website (look in the Footer). CIC36 is the annual community interest company report submitted to Companies House, which details how the organisation has pursued its community interest objectives and how assets and profits have been used for public benefit. Reports are available for each financial year since incorporation.

Parish Online is the primary service delivered through Local Authority Technology CIC. This includes the Parish Online mapping platform, website service, email service, cloud office tools and domain registration for town, parish and community councils. Community benefit projects including the Free GOV.UK Email Programme, GOV.UK Switching Fund and Community Map Scotland are also delivered through the CIC. The CIC has also funded Hub, a public information portal. XMAP Cloud GIS is delivered directly by Geoxphere Ltd rather than through the CIC, however XMAP customers can choose to contract through the CIC if they wish.

Local Authority Technology CIC is regulated by the Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies, which is part of Companies House. We are required to submit an annual CIC36 report demonstrating that our activities continue to benefit the community, and to maintain the asset lock that prevents CIC assets from being distributed to private individuals. Our accounts are filed annually with Companies House and are publicly available.