Cornwall Council:
Developing the Value of Digital Assets

Like many, Cornwall Council’s operations have evolved substantially over the years, but with that has come information that’s fragmented, inflated costs of storage, and risks to both data accuracy and appropriate governance.

In 2019, a data review at Cornwall Council revealed there were over eight million separate Excel files the existed across the G Drives of the Waste Management Department alone.

There were obvious benefits to getting to grips with the Council’s information storage legacy systems. The Corporate File Plan was conceived to be a singular point of reference for all Council information and help improve service design and functionality and improve overall how the Council could work.

What We Did

We co-ordinated with the Business Managers of a series of Council Directorates to engage decision-makers, formulate migration plans and design a File Plan Architecture with each one of them, developing overarching principles of operation and data standards based on the approved Master Data Management Strategy and LG Inform’s ESD Standards.

Working with the Council’s Information Services and Governance team, we put detailed records management and retention policies in place, established how to handle access permissions and the adoption and implemented the CFP across Council teams with Senior Responsible Officers and other stakeholders .

The Result

Having the Corporate File Plan in place as a digital asset has enabled the Council to focus much more effectively on outcome-based decision-making.

Working together across departments and developing improved service streamlining and performance efficiency, the CFP is an opportunity for end-to-end service delivery improvements to be made, using analytics and focused reference points for development. The CFP is effectively a heatmap of where resources are most required, enabling the organisation as a whole to be more intelligently responsive.