Director’s weeknote

Atika Mohammed, DDaT Luton Director

This week seemed to theme around skills,

Rolled out DDaT skills assessment (Skillstats) for feedback to DDaT managers and change agents. We’ll be reviewing feedback and rolling this out to all staff next week.
Met our work experience student and loved to see his enthusiasm. I also loved how the team (Mick Kennedy, Amyrah Khanam and Rana Bilal) were really showing him things to give him a true taste and not just getting him to do the boring admin!
Had a mingling afternoon with potential graduates joining the council’s graduate scheme from September, and telling them why DDaT is the best place to work.
Learnt about Luton’s potential devolution plans (for a mayoral authority with Bedford, Central Beds and Milton Keynes). Don’t panic… it’s not a combined authority. It’s about the governance, not the operations, but how this unlocks economic growth in the region and opportunities for the population of Luton.
Took on a new mentee, a head of service who has just joined Luton and supporting her naviage Luton .
Has a great intro meeting with Samantha Wootton – welcome to team and look forward to see you tackle FOIs and data breaches!
Also really enjoyed speaking to Anisha Begum, under the guise of planning the eighth quarterly connect day in June (if you have any ideas or requests of what would be useful to hear about or see, please let Anisha know), but also getting to know her. I’m now thinking of holding a monthly 1-1 coffee with a different DDaT member each month so watch this space!
DDaT strategic board on Monday approved Nicola Egan’s recommended approach for Xantura, as well as our meeting room technology project and approach for non-networked frontline worker staff.

Enjoy the sunny, long weekend everyone. If you’re heading to the Luton Carnival on Sunday, I hear our Chief Exec is a horse… 🐎

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 remained on sustaining adoption momentum, monitoring steady‑state usage trends, progressing external sharing clarification, and preparing adoption activity for transition into BAU.

✅ Key achievements this week

Adoption monitoring continued

Weekly OneDrive usage data reviewed to assess ongoing engagement
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

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

Change adoption transition progressed

Adoption activities, reporting, and metrics continue to be documented in preparation for handover into BAU / Change Management

📈 Adoption snapshot (week on week)

Based on data from 10 to 17 May 2026.

Active file viewing and editing decreased by 1.1%, from 2,136 to 2,112 users
File syncing activity increased by 1.6%, from 1,397 to 1,419 users
Internal file sharing decreased by 4.6%, from 760 to 725 users
Users not actively using OneDrive increased during the period, indicating minor fluctuation in engagement, but remaining within expected variation for steady‑state usage
Overall adoption remains strong, with usage broadly stable week‑on‑week, and no indication of any sustained decline in user engagement

📊 Current status

Overall status: 🟢 on track
Deployment: complete
User adoption: in progress
Governance and policy: in progress
Bau transition: in progress (handover pending). No new blockers or escalations were identified during this reporting period.

⚠️ 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 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 BAU / change management

Workplace experience

Ben McCartney, Head of Workplace Experience

The meeting room technology upgrade has now been approved. I’ve reached out to three suppliers to explore options and set up demo rooms, with visits booked over the coming weeks to see the solutions in action.
Following user feedback, we’re exploring how we can proactively update laptop drivers to prevent recurring issues and reduce avoidable contact into the Service Desk.
A workshop has been booked for 3 June to refresh our ticket categories, helping us better understand why users are contacting us and identify opportunities to reduce demand.
Had a great meet and greet with the lovely Wootton, Samantha-Lea, our new Deputy DPO—looking forward to working together.
Caught up with Helen Wooldridge from Trafford Council to compare notes. Reassuring to see that many councils are facing similar challenges and are at a similar stage in their journey.
Met with the Alemba product team to share feedback and discuss future direction, particularly around AI and how it can support our service.
Completed and submitted April’s performance pack.
Joined the Adoption & Change sub-group session, which included a guest speaker—Karuana Gatimu (Director, Microsoft 365 Customer Advocacy Group)—sharing insights on driving adoption at scale.

Records management

Carol Osborne, Project Manager DDaT Luton

📊 Overall status

Initiation / planning phase ongoing
Progress steady but dependency‑led
Procurement and supplier mobilisation continue to gate delivery start

🚧 Progress

RAID and action tracker actively updated and maintained
Key initiation and planning actions remain open (IG sign‑off, retention mapping, migration criteria)
Initial CX Housing engagement complete, with integration and governance actions progressing
Oasis FileSmart supplier engagement completed via initial intro call, providing validated direction for solution approach

📌 Key activities

Procurement milestones continuing to be tracked (award, standstill, mobilisation)
Governance model and housing decision‑making roles being defined
FileSmart solution approach reviewed with Oasis, including SharePoint‑based model, retention controls, and Civica integration dependency
Delivery approach shaped around Housing-first implementation with phased rollout and change requests
Alignment progressing across Oasis, Civica, and Luton Council technical teams

⚠️ Risks and issues

Procurement delays impacting mobilisation timeline
Dependency on IG sign‑off before migration approach can proceed
Integration complexity across SharePoint / CX Housing / FileSmart, particularly Civica connector capability
Significant legacy data backlog (c.100k+ unstructured documents) creating data quality and migration risk
Dependency on cross‑supplier alignment (Oasis / Civica / LBC)
Contract route and approval via ESPO / Proactis still to be finalised

✅ Key actions

Progress contract issue and signature to enable mobilisation
Schedule supplier kick‑off with Oasis (Dan Kong’s team)
Define and confirm housing decision‑makers and escalation routes
Obtain IG sign‑off on migration, retention, and disposal approach
Finalise retention mapping and ‘do not migrate’ criteria
Plan and scope technical workshop (late June)
Initiate separate engagement with Civica for integration
Progress CX Housing alignment (Dan Kong / Ifti engagement)

Technology and Infrastructure (T&I)

Richard Pacheco, Service Manager Product and Delivery for Corporate Systems

The T&I notes provide a collective update on highlighted activity every two weeks.

General updates

Collaborating with the Finance team, great progress continues to be made in the review of Finance Pension reports.
A major issue with schools reporting with the Finance team has been resolved.
The Trent Mobile application has completed initial testing and is now in the pilot testing phase.
Engagement has started for a new volunteering solution.
The MS forms office add-in made available in PowerPoint (for all staff) to facilitate live surveys during presentations and to reduce duplicate requests for 3rd party apps.
The (Production) PowerBI data gateways have been made available to the Performance team to support key reporting projects and facilitate uptake of PowerBI reporting.
A new survey to track Copilot trial licence activity has been created.
A new desktop shortcut to intranet help on Windows 11 Assistive tools is being tested.

Challenges

Resourcing to support Housing audit activities overlap with build activity and dates for the new CX environment.
System upgrade activity hindered by challenges around business priority and supplier performance.
Resolving review of required contract with procurement team.

Product and delivery – People Services

Steven Scott, Service Manager Product and Delivery

🎉🎉🎉A ‘GOOD’ week all around! 🎉🎉🎉

Our Youth Partnership Service has been rated ‘good’ by the HM inspectorate of Probation
Our Adult Social Care Service has been rated ‘good’ by the Care Quality Commission

These achievements are a testament to the dedication and hard work of the DDAT team. They remind us that our efforts with systems, technology, infrastructure and data benefit, not just our council workforce, but the wider public we all support.

General updates

As a council we submitted our final draft to DFE SEND reform plan. These reforms, much like those in social care, represent generational shifts with implications for how we deliver IT and data to support SEND. We’re also continuing our review and involvement in advancing the Family Help social care reforms at the national level.
I completed my yearly formal check-in, reflecting on my goals and development for the year ahead. It’s a valuable process, so I encourage everyone to plan for your own development—take the time for those check-ins!
We had a productive touch base with Jayvik Patel, working to realign our system portals with the council’s new, fresh-looking website. Plus, an open intro call with Nicole Egan, which has left me motivated and excited for our data journey ahead.
On the technical front, we’ve installed and begun our three-month testing window for the latest Liquidlogic roadmap. A massive thank you to Shubhangi Mantri for expertly handling third-party connectivity. We’ve also confirmed the downtime and dates for the upcoming Liquidlogic and ContrOCC server upgrades,

Finally, yesterday I had the privilege of hearing a keynote speech and enjoying a personal chat with Fatima Whitbread MBE at the SystemC UserCon. Her words reinforced that our roles are never ‘just tech’, ‘just systems’ or ‘just data’.

Weeknotes w/c 26 May 2026

Director’s weeknote

OneDrive user adoption

📌 Project overview