Director’s weeknote

Atika Mohammed, DDaT Luton Director

I had an exciting start to this week, with a meeting between myself, the University of Beds and Economic Growth colleagues.

The University is putting forward a proposal for a partnership between us as well as Goodman (the company who have bought the Vauxhall site) for us to put in a bid to be the UK’s first Civica AI infrastructure site.

This means using the Goodman site to enable:

• AI infrastructure that gives priority access to the region
• developments such as the airport expansion and Universal as well us as a local authority, NHS, police and more

Alongside this will be an offer on service design using the infrastructure and work to co-locate Luton tech start-ups, AI R&D facilities and tech giants. With this we’ll be looking at skills and careers pathways for Luton residents and working with schools and colleges.

Fingers crossed it’s something we can take forward! 

Other key things of note this week

A kick off session with the contact centre, transformation and Revs and Bens to look at transforming the Revenues service holistically from a residents’ perspective.

What started as looking at digitising calls went into looking as processes, performance as well as policies that may be generating the demand. It was a great start to a collaborative effort to improve Resident Experience and outcomes.

• Met with 365Tribe and really excited to kick off our Digital Champions programme – keep 1 July free in your diaries – they’re coming to the Town Hall with a Waffle Bar! 
• Really enjoyed the first monthly all staff meeting and seeing people’s faces! Thank you for the feedback, we will review and reflect on this for the next session
• Met with our Microsoft account exec who has a lot of really exciting things about the future of CoPilot. I’ve asked him to come to our next away day to do a session
• CX DMT: we looked at our new corporate performance dashboard, part of us operating as a new kind of council

Low code and web

Kevin Rowe, Head of Digital Development

I too had met with UoB this week, to discuss a potential partnership between us, them and Netcall, to get the next generation of low code developers trained up, early days, but hoping this comes to something. 

Here’s what has been happening across the digital platform this week.

Product: Drupal

• LocalGov Drupla (LGD) codebase migration from GitHub to Drupal namespace started 
• In-site search spellcheck feature in progress by Annertech
• Brand experience audit of ‘portal’ sites started – core focus on header and footer updates
• Google signals data collection enabled to collect additional demographic data
• MS Clarity citations dashboard enabled via Google Search Console
• Gives us visibility into how our content shows up in AI-generated answers

Product: Liberty Create

• Created Google Tag Manager container to power analytical and behavioural tracking 
• Finalised internal styling
• Employee and org data imported
• Upgraded to latest version of the platform 26.1
• Started thinking about email integrations

Digital Services team (DSt)

Kicked off digital services requests sprint 10 (11 to 29 May). Current tracking is:

• not started: 14
• in progress: 17
• late: 0
• completed: 26

Sunset DSt OOH telephone number.

OneDrive user adoption

Carol Osborne, Project Manager, DDaT Luton

 📌 Project overview

The OneDrive project continues in the user adoption and optimisation phase. Over the past week, focus has been on:

• sustaining adoption momentum
• monitoring steady‑state usage patterns
• progressing external sharing clarification
• preparing adoption activity for transition to Change Management role

✅ Key achievements this week

User adoption monitoring continued

• Weekly OneDrive usage data reviewed to assess ongoing engagement following stabilisation post‑Easter.
• Trends confirm continued growth across usage and collaboration behaviours.

User support maintained

• Ongoing support provided to users on OneDrive usage and migration from network drives.
• Continued reinforcement of guidance on OneDrive for personal storage and SharePoint for shared collaboration.

External sharing (Egress) clarification progressed

• Continued follow up with services to understand external sharing requirements and dependencies.
• Governance ownership and historic decisions remain under review.

Change adoption manager transition preparation

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

📊 User adoption snapshot (week on week)

Based on data from 3 to 10 May 2026.

• Active file viewing and editing increased by 1.3%, from 2,109 to 2,136 users.
• File syncing activity increased by 3.0%, from 1,356 to 1,397 users.
• Internal file sharing increased by 4.7%, from 726 to 760 users.
• Users not actively using OneDrive increased slightly during the period, indicating minor variation in engagement levels, but not a material change in overall adoption trends.
• Overall adoption continues to strengthen, with consistent week‑on‑week growth across all key usage metrics, indicating embedded and sustained usage behaviour.

📊 Current status

• Overall status: 🟢 on track
• Deployment: complete
• User adoption: in progress
• Governance and policy: in progress
• No new blockers or escalations identified this week

⚠️ Risks and issues

• Residual non‑adoption behaviour: a small cohort of users continue to revert to legacy network drive behaviours.
• External sharing governance: historic decisions relating to external file sharing remain partially undocumented, creating dependency for some services.

🔜 Planned activities

• Continue monitoring steady‑state adoption trends.
• 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 change manager, once appointed.

Frontline Services

Ian Pavitt, Project Manager DDaT Luton

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

• Domestic waste specifications going through approval process (waste)
• Low code very early iteration demo provided
• Portal scope/decision workshop in planning
• Low code platform foundation/set up activities ongoing
• DPIA process for Bartec back end: ongoing
• LCS extension agreed

Key activities in next period

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

PR910B Regulatory Services

Ian Pavitt, Project Manager DDaT Luton

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

Key outcomes in previous period

• Tender: awarded to winning vendor
• 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

Data Governance Purview Pilot

Ian Pavitt, Project Manager DDaT Luton

Project summary

• No further update – project meetings to restart at the end of May
• Meetings on pause until end of May with procurement options being explored

Workplace experience

This week focused on development, industry insight and progressing key service improvements.

• Attended training sessions on organisational resilience and strategic decision making, delivered by Rich Willis, strengthening capability in risk-informed planning and leadership decision frameworks.
• Represented the service at SITS 2026 (ExCeL London) and went on a safari with Naheed Islam, attending sessions on:
  • McLaren and the cost of complexity
  • transformation approaches across IT services
  • high-functioning burnout
  • agentic AI and the future operating model of IT supporting an AI workforce
  • engaged with multiple suppliers to explore opportunities and innovations relevant to our roadmap
• Participated in SMT meeting, supporting corporate priorities and planning activity.
• Implemented a new single sign-on category in Alemba, improving categorisation and reporting accuracy.
• Held a project kick-off with 365Tribe to launch Luton’s new digital champion network, marking a key step in enabling digital adoption across the organisation.
• Met with Alemba to investigate a system bug and provided a HAR file to support their development team in diagnosing the issue.

Product and Delivery – People Services update

Project manager: Steven Scott

General updates

• NVEST (National Voice for Excellence in Safeguarding Tech) session exploring impacts of AI within social care
• Secured dates for server upgrades and main system roadmap upgrades in the coming weeks
• Ongoing review of scripts and testing of new Xantura OneView platform
• Resource and development prioritisation for children’s social care and family help reforms
• Task and finish group for risk outside of the home for children social care
• Implementation of a new development request and management process within teams alongside forms/power automate
• Enrolment onto leadership and management apprenticeship

Looking ahead

• Install of latest roadmap release for LCS/EHM/EYES/ContrOCC/portals and adults
• Social Care Systems UserCon in Birmingham
• Reconfiguration of portals to match new Luton website branding
• Progression and install of our stage 2 developments as part of the TOM redesign in adult social care
• Exploring strategies to reduce meeting fatigue