Director’s weeknote

By Atika Mohammed

Lots of activity this week

• We actively started bringing Transformation and DDaT closer together, looking at how the two teams can share resources for projects and work more closely, which is very exciting! 
• Started objective meetings with my heads of service, looking back at last year’s objectives.
• A slightly updated format was trialled for Technology programme board – thank you Archana Bhavraju, Hazel Lunnv and Nicola Egan. We looked at resource pressures that might be coming up and how we could address them.
• We had a productive meeting between Civica and the housing CX project team, working together on a way forward with some of the challenges the project is facing.
• Lots of conversations in the data space – looking at future funding for Xantura, how we progress the data platform work, what skills and resources we need. Data is a real focus for the organisation at the moment.

Highlights of the week

• The sun! Bright days always make me more cheerful
• Had my intro meet with Joe Bedingfield – it was great to hear about Joe’s positive experience of joining the team, the slickness of getting set up and how welcoming everyone has been!
• Seeing the low code crack on with building on the new platform after much waiting! 
• Learning our Strategic Digital Services Manager, Jayvik Patel, has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Luton Excellence Award (LEx) awards – well done Jayvik!! 🤞🏻
• Hearing someone say “we are changing the culture and services are coming to us for all sorts of tech now” – music to my ears to hear they are starting to engage with us before buying new tech! 

I’ve also logged in and had a nose around the new eLearning platform. If you haven’t done this yet, please remember to do so, complete any mandatory training and look around for other useful courses.

Enjoy the sunny weekend all 🌞

Regulatory Services

Project lead: Ian Pavitt

The project status is green with the tender award in progress.

⬅️Key outcomes in previous period

• Tender award/completion – ongoing – report final review by procurement head
• Data cleansing – ongoing
• Roadshow planning paused
• Services activity planning – ongoing
• BA process mapping paused

➡️Key activities in next period

• Tender award/completion – ongoing – report signoff
• Data cleansing – ongoing
• Roadshow planning paused
• Services activity planning – ongoing
• BA process mapping paused

OneDrive user adoption

Project lead: Carol Osborne

📌 Project overview

The OneDrive project remains in the user adoption and optimisation phase. Activity during the past week focused on:

• monitoring adoption trends post‑Easter
• maintaining user support
• progressing external sharing clarification
• preparing for adoption handover to BAU 
• weekly usage data reviewed to assess post‑holiday engagement levels
• trends analysed to distinguish seasonal fluctuation from behavioural change

User support maintained

• Ongoing responses to user queries on OneDrive usage and migration from network drives.
• Continued reinforcement of guidance on OneDrive for personal files and SharePoint for shared content.

External sharing (Egress) follow‑up progressed

• Further follow‑up to identify services and teams with dependencies on external file sharing.
• Work continues to clarify historic decisions and ownership.

Change adoption manager transition preparation

• Adoption activities, metrics, and reporting approach continue to be documented in preparation for handover.

📈 User adoption snapshot

• Active file viewing and editing decreased by 13.6%, from 2,409 to 2,081 users.
• File syncing activity increased by 3.0%, from 1,263 to 1,301 users.
• Internal file sharing increased by 10.8%, from 620 to 687 users.
• Users not actively using OneDrive increased during the period, which aligns with Easter holidays and higher levels of annual leave, rather than indicating a decline in overall adoption.

Overall adoption remains strong, with collaboration behaviours rebounding, and fluctuations consistent with seasonal absence rather than reduced engagement.

📊 Current status

• Overall status: 🟢 on track
• Deployment: complete
• User Adoption: in progress
• Governance and policy: in progress
• BAU transition: in progress (adoption handover pending)

No new blockers or escalations were identified this week.

⚠️ Risks and issues

• Short‑term usage dip: reduced activity during the reporting period may temporarily mask underlying adoption trends.
• External sharing governance: historic decisions relating to external sharing remain partially undocumented, creating dependency for some services.

🔜 Planned activities

• Review post‑Easter adoption trends to confirm return to steady‑state usage.
• Produce and review the next weekly OneDrive usage report.
• Continue supporting user migration away from network drives.
• Progress clarification of external sharing (Egress) governance.
• Finalise handover of adoption activities to the change adoption manager.

Frontline Services

Project lead: Ian Pavitt

The project status is green now that Bartec have agreed to the change of scope and the low code platform foundation related activities have commenced.

Key outcomes in last period

• Met with Bartec and agreed change of scope for in house portal
• Kick off meeting for LCS planning
• Kick off meeting for portal planning
• Workshop planning for portal.
• Waste specifications workshops extended and rescheduled
• Low code platform now available / set up activities underway

Key activities in next period

• Begin change of scope requirements kick off – Bartec/LBC
• Continue work of main service request specifications (waste)
• Schedule portal planning first workshop / complete agenda and pre-work reqs
• Create LCS workshop agenda and pre-work reqs
• Low code platform foundation build – ongoing
• Security assessment Bartec back end – data protection – update

Data governance purview pilot

Project lead: Ian Pavitt

Project summary

• No further update
• Meetings on pause until end of May with procurement options being explored
• Pilot testing close to completion.
• Procurement of a data management system being considered – Would reduce service area administration through automation.
• Parallel rollout of SharePoint being investigated/considered.
• Volunteer for first/early service for the rollout – senior administrator for School Improvement – Education (previous experience of process at another council in a previous role

Low code and web

Project lead: Kevin Rowe

We took delivery of our low code platform on Monday. James Bovington and I have been busy:

• creating the basic tables for the CRM
• creating a blueprint for an application which can be duplicated and re-used
• developing person matching algorithm so that online applications get automatically matched to CRM records
• putting in place initial Luton styling (fonts, logo’s, colours)
• creating an equalities monitoring form that can be linked to from any webpage, form, portal or application 
• setting up template patterns for common tasks 
• understanding more about the initial apps we need to create

Joba Mogaji and Jonathan Shoneye have been working through the Netcall training. 

On the LocalGov Drupal side of operations, the website project was nominated for a Luton Excellence Award LEx) this year but unfortunately wasn’t shortlisted – Strategic Digital Services Manager, Jayvik Patel, was however shortlisted for the manager of the year award 

Luton’s Digital Services team got through 84 service requests compared to our monthly average of 52! 🎉

DDaT Service Desk

Project lead: Naheed Islam

From Monday, we received between 5 to 10 tickets from ACL users reporting issues with OWA not refreshing or updating automatically. Emails in both personal inboxes and shared mailboxes (opened via ‘O’open another mailboxo) were not appearing unless users manually refreshed the page. Steps taken are listed below.

• Service Desk worked closely with Jamie Carnegie and Infrastructure to investigate.
• A test user has been identified and we are resetting the Windows profile to determine whether this is linked to a local Windows caching issue.
• While browser tab inactivity was initially considered, the behaviour is also occurring when OWA is open in a single active tab, so this is still under investigation.
• We saw a rise in calls regarding printers no longer recognising user ID badges. This was traced to the Ricoh PaperCut deployment on new servers, which has impacted configuration on some Xerox devices.
  • As devices reconnect to their original PaperCut servers, functionality is restored.
  • A device reboot speeds this process up, which Service Desk has been advising where appropriate.
• There was also a notable increase in calls relating to last week’s Copilot changes. While communications were sent via the intranet, some users had missed them.
  • Analysts have been explaining the changes directly to users, resolving queries quickly and closing calls without the need for escalation.

Product and delivery – line of business

Project lead: Natasha Snookes

• Supported delivery across key priorities, particularly the housing CX / housing systems replacement and Xantura work, including:
  • issue reviews
  • data migration discussions
  • testing coordination
  • supplier engagement
• Liaised on the CX migration and additional UAT‑related activity.
• Final upgrade sign off issues for CivicaPay, including finance imports/exports,
• Proposal to expand work on Timberlake, Alan’s Power BI dashboards for interfaces and explore how this can developed further.

Meetings and governance

• Chaired and attended a high volume of delivery, data and governance meetings, including:
  • Housing Systems
  • iTrent
  • AD integration
  • architecture review
  • supplier sessions
  • programme boards

Stakeholder support and problem solving

• Responded to a broad range of operational and stakeholder queries, including:
  • housing contact routing
  • payroll and iTrent issues
  • accessibility and workplace adjustments
  • system configuration
• Provided clear updates via Teams, closing completed items and flagging work that remains ongoing.

Resourcing

• Worked with managers to align on resourcing, reporting gaps and follow‑up actions, agreeing where further discussion was needed.

Product and delivery – People Services

Project lead: Steven Scott

A week of challenges but we are doing the doing!

General updates and achievements

• Live with two new key processes within Adult Social Care supporting with their TOM redesign.
• Liquidlogic UAT OS upgrade in testing
• Eight workshop meetings for children’s national family first reforms
• Continued data quality improvements and case fixes ready for end of year returns.

Challenges

• Dependencies on system changes/ configuration and external suppliers creating delays.
• Competing priorities between BAU and transformation activity impacting pace of delivery.
• Operational challenges following change of data centre by one of our providers. Supplier engaged to find a more appropriate way of working which doesn’t result in additional admin time of copying and pasting which meets our ADA.
• Ongoing Xantura OneView for Children’s Services testing.
• Progressing into phase 3 of the family help national reforms within children’s social care. Resource previously dedicated to supporting system developments is no longer available. We will need to be even more considered in:
  • how we set priorities
  • making tough decisions about which areas to advance and which to defer

Looking ahead

• Work continues on the major rewrite of the Adult Services Liquidlogic system.
• More reforms from central government! Need to assess the IT impact.
• Finalising upgrade dates for our next large roadmap upgrade for Liquidlogic systems which should fix a number of operational issues being experienced.
• Revising team processes and implement revised handbooks for how to cover our BAU processes in a more streamlined way.
• Blue-sky thinking session of how we can radically reduce Liquidlogic call numbers.
• Need to get my hair done for the LEx Award photos next week 😉

Product and delivery – corporate weekly update

Richard Pacheco

As well as watching all the recent Godzilla movies in the evenings this week…

Key activities and achievements

• Focused on post–in place upgrade (IPU) performance issues in WF360 following problems experienced in TRAIN.
• Engaged Civica to escalate unresolved tickets to maintain WF360 testing/upgrade schedule.
• Supported an initial discovery session with Procurement to review current exemption and engagement processes.
• Progressed development tasks to support implementation of Trent to AD integration due in June.
• Created PoC to demonstrate Shifts app integration with Teams telephony to manage call agent availability instead of spreadsheets.
• Kicked of automation of bank holiday management for service number auto attendants within Teams telephony.
• Reviewed assistive functions within M365 with housing strategy and development policy officer.
• Completed PoC build of bookings app for DDaT change agents.

Challenges

• WF360 progress remains constrained by supplier performance
• Resource management across development teams and services

Looking ahead

• Progress stabilisation of WF360 Train environment to progress IPU and upgrade testing.
• Continue discovery with procurement team and start PoC of build components
• Engage HR for review of processes to support MHR to AD integration
• complete testing of PoC for Shift apps integration with Teams telephony
• Continue Copilot follow‑ups and publish survey findings.