Director’s weeknote

Atika Mohammed, DDaT Luton Director

This week has felt like a bit of a blur! Key activities listed below.

• Good chat with Nicola on the next steps around our data work and wider conversations around BI, Xantura and all things data related.
• Discussion with Luton Rising on the future of IT support – they will be commissioning some work to look at the feasibility of separating from us.
• Productive APP and Website meetings where good progress has been made on both of these.
• More conversations on closer working and blended teams between DDaT and transformation.
• Discussions progressing on changes to the wider DDaT structure, your HoS will share more details on timelines shortly.
• Facilitated 2 activities at SMLG – one highlighting the importance of data literacy and one talking about future tech enabled operating models.

This weeks highlights:

• learning about Rae, Michael developing a back up solution for Elections
• hearing from Constable, Nova on the work progressing on digital inclusion
• hearing about the impact our recycled laptop scheme has had for residents

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 seven days, activity focused on maintaining adoption momentum, refreshing usage reporting, progressing external sharing clarification, and documenting adoption activity ahead of the Change Adoption Manager handover.

✅ Key achievements this week

• Adoption activity sustained
  • Ongoing support provided to users on OneDrive usage and migration from network drives.
  • Continued reinforcement of guidance on when to use OneDrive vs SharePoint for personal and shared content.
• Weekly adoption reporting updated
  • OneDrive usage data was refreshed and reviewed as part of the weekly reporting cadence.
  • Adoption trends were consolidated for inclusion in internal updates and sprint notes.
• External sharing (Egress) follow‑up progressed
  • Continued follow‑up to identify services with operational dependencies on external file sharing.
  • Historic decisions and ownership remain under review to clarify the current governance position.
• Change adoption manager transition preparation
  • Adoption activity, metrics, and reporting approach continue to be documented to support a smooth handover.

📈 Adoption snapshot (week on week)

Based on usage data from 6 to 12 April 2026

• Active file viewing and editing decreased by 6.0% (from 2,562 to 2,409 users)
• File syncing activity increased slightly by 0.2% (from 1,260 to 1,263 users)
• Internal file sharing decreased by 4.5% (from 649 to 620 users)

Users not actively using OneDrive increased during the period, aligning with school holidays, annual leave, and Easter, rather than indicating a reversal in adoption behaviour.

Overall, the data continues to show strong underlying adoption, with short‑term fluctuations consistent with seasonal leave patterns rather than changes in user intent.

📊 Current status

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

⚠️ Risks and issues

• File sharing behaviours: internal sharing has dipped slightly this week; targeted guidance will continue to support collaborative use cases.
• External sharing governance: historic decisions relating to external sharing remain partially undocumented, creating dependency for some services pending confirmation.

🔜 Planned activities

• 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.
• Identify targeted adoption actions for remaining low‑engagement users.

Frontline services

Ian Pavitt, Project Manager DDaT Luton

The project status is amber as final decision to move forward with the in-house low code solution has been made but negotiations with Bartec are still outstanding.

Key outcomes in last period

• Two workshops with Bartec to complete main service request specifications
• Advised Bartec of low code portal solution investigation
• Steering group review of low code portal business case and decision confirmed
• Met with LCS to establish process for replacing the application inhouse.

Key activities in next period

• Complete work of main service request specifications
• Meet with Bartec to confirm low code portal strategy
• LCS low code replacement solution planning session
• Low code portal solution planning session

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 award process started
• Data cleansing – ongoing
• Roadshow planning paused
• Services activity planning – ongoing
• BA process mapping paused

Key activities in next period

• Tender award/completion – ongoing
• Roadshow PPT drafting
• Services activity planning – ongoing
• Data cleansing – ongoing

Data governance purview pilot

Ian Pavitt, Project Manager DDaT Luton

Project summary

• 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 – Abigail Coupe – Senior Administrator for School Improvement – Education (previous experience of process at another council in a previous role

Website replacement

Carol Osborne, Project Manager DDaT Luton

🏗️ Overall project position

The website project moves into final, formal decommissioning stage. 

Activity over the past week has focused on BAU transition, decommissioning readiness, and governance actions required before formal project closure. The live website continues to operate stably.

✅ Key achievements this week

• BAU handover activity progressed, including updates to the CMS handover documentation
• Checkpoint and project board meetings held to confirm post‑go-live position and next steps
• Confirmation that no major post‑launch incidents have been reported
• Decommissioning phase formally acknowledged as a prerequisite to project closure
• Agreement reached on Service Desk routing and Digital team support arrangements

🔄 Work in progress

Technical

• Continued monitoring of live performance, analytics and Cloudflare alerts
• Legacy SharePoint and infrastructure decommissioning activities being prepared
• Redirect tracking and proxy DNS review ongoing

Governance and BAU transition

• BAU handover document updates in progress

⚠️ Risks and issues

• Project closure dependent on completion of agreed decommissioning activities

Overall risk remains low and controlled.

📅 Next steps

• Complete BAU handover documentation and confirm ownership
• Progress legacy platform and SharePoint decommissioning actions