With cutbacks occurring it is becoming more and more difficult for many local authorities to find resources to train the required number of staff on their current gis systems. Some local authorities may have also had to cut back on planned upgrades and new implementations of gis systems as well as training for existing systems. With the current climate of continuous budget cutting it is important to ensure that the most is made of what limited financial resources are available. In this way it is possible to ensure staff are properly trained and understand the many benefits gis systems provide within the public sector.

Once you have acquired an understanding of the functionality of a GIS system such as Quantum GIS you may have a need to link a relational database file at some point. Whilst attaching a CSV file from a spread sheet is a relatively simple procedure in QGIS, linking relational databases can be somewhat more involved because more parameters are involved. A popular relational database such as MySQL can be linked to QGIS through the standard interface if you have enabled the database server and have access via a password.