Data governance · Run monthly for you
Data governance as a service: the full function on one retainer
The leadership and the hands: senior leadership running the forum and briefing the board, plus stewardship support, monthly quality profiling, the register administered, standards enforced on arrival and the board pack produced. For firms that want data governance outcomes without building a department first. From £9,500 + VAT per month, fixed by scope and designed from day one to shrink as your own team grows.
The DG Office at a glance
Definition
What is data governance as a service?
Data governance as a service, also called outsourced or managed data governance, is the full data governance function delivered as a monthly retainer: senior leadership running the forum and reporting to the board, plus the operational work most retainers leave behind, including stewardship support alongside your domain owners, monthly quality profiling with defects triaged to closure, the register and lineage administered, new systems and suppliers onboarded to standards, and the reporting produced rather than merely presented.
It exists because most mid-size firms can justify neither the three hires the function needs nor the cost of doing nothing. Intelance runs the Data Governance Office from £9,500 + VAT per month, fixed by how many data areas you have and how often we run, and built from day one to hand functions to your own team as it grows. Ownership never leaves your organisation: your people own the domains and make the decisions. The office does the work that makes both possible.
Where the operating model does not exist yet, Data Governance Foundations builds it first. Where only leadership is missing, the Virtual CDO is the lighter answer. The wider practice is described under data governance consulting, and our guide to why data governance is the foundation of safe AI explains what the office carries as AI plans arrive.
A forum that runs
Leadership decisions logged and escalations settled, monthly.
The hands included
Stewardship, profiling and register upkeep done for you rather than delegated back to you.
Change absorbed
New systems and suppliers onboarded to standards on arrival.
Reporting produced
The board pack written by the office, with the evidence behind it.
The monthly jobs
What the DG Office runs month by month
Six functions, every month, each leaving evidence behind it. The difference from leadership-only retainers is the second, third and fourth cards: the hands are included.
The leadership
Everything the Virtual CDO does: the forum run with decisions logged, escalations settled, the board kept honest.
Monthly outputData decisions made once, deliberately.Stewardship support
The quality work done with your domain owners: issues investigated, fixes drafted, owners equipped rather than burdened.
Monthly outputStewardship that happens, because someone has the time.Quality operations
Profiling run monthly by us: defects found, triaged with the owners and tracked to closure rather than to a backlog.
Monthly outputDefect rates trending down, with the evidence.Register administration
The critical data register, metadata and lineage kept current as systems, owners and suppliers change.
Monthly outputA register that describes this month, maintained by us.Standards and onboarding
New systems, suppliers and use cases onboarded to your standards on arrival, exceptions logged and priced.
Monthly outputChange absorbed without governance debt.Board reporting
The board page and quarterly pack produced by the office rather than merely presented: numbers, trends and decisions needed.
Monthly outputThe answer to “can we trust the numbers?”, written for you.How it works
How the DG Office runs from take-on to handover
The office runs to a published rhythm from the first month, and its endgame is written into the design: handing the work to your own people.
Take-on
The registers adopted from your QuickScan or Foundations baseline, owners confirmed, the quality checks started and the schedule agreed. The fee is fixed before the month starts.
The rhythm
Forum, stewardship support, quality profiling, register upkeep, onboarding and the board page, on schedule.
The deep review
The register re-tiered, the quality baseline re-cut and the quarterly data position taken to the board with the year’s trend.
The big programme
An ERP, migration or AI programme arrives: the office keeps governance running through it, and Project DG embeds at programme scale if the work demands it.
The shrink path
Your first data hire takes the stewardship work, your second takes quality operations, and the office steps down towards a Virtual CDO, then to nothing. The exit is the design.
Larger and multi-entity estates need a bigger office, and we say how much at scoping. If no operating model exists yet, Data Governance Foundations builds one first, so the office runs a working model rather than improvising around a missing one.
Published fees
The services around the DG Office
Every route is priced before you choose it. If the lighter option fits, we say so, because an office you did not need is exactly the dependency we design against.
Data Governance QuickScan
Ten working days of profiled evidence: ownership, quality, lineage, access, law and AI readiness, scored and costed. The take-on adopts it directly.Best whenYou do not yet know what state the data is in. FeeFrom £14,500 + VAT10 working days 02
Data Governance Foundations
The operating model built properly: named owners, sized stewardship, a forum with decision rights and a measured baseline, which the office then runs.Best whenNo operating model exists yet. FeeFrom £45,000 + VAT3 to 9 months 03
Virtual CDO
The leadership alone: a named senior leader two to four days a month, when your own team can do the operational work.Best whenYou have the hands and need only the leadership. FeeFrom £7,500 + VAT / month 04Project DG
Embedded delivery support inside your ERP, migration or AI programme: data profiled early, mapped deliberately and rehearsed before cutover.Best whenA programme needs more than the monthly rhythm. FeeFrom £22,000 + VAT / monthThe alternatives
How the DG Office compares with the alternatives
Three ways to get the data governance function done. The difference is what gets done, month after month.
A lead, a steward and an analyst: three hires, three ramps, three retention risks
Twelve months of recruitment and onboarding before the first quality report
The full-time cost of a part-time workload
A year to assemble
A part-time data leader with a plan, and nobody with time to execute it
Decisions made in the forum, then quietly undone by empty diaries
Governance by good intentions
Slow, because nobody has time to execute
The leadership and the hands: forum run, quality profiled, register administered, packs produced, from £9,500 + VAT per month
Outcomes from month two: defects trending down, the register current, the board informed
The shrink path only works if your hires take the handovers, so we put the handover points in writing
Take-on inside a month
Scope
What this covers and what it leaves out
You get
Senior leadership plus operational hands, on one retainer with one accountable lead.
Monthly quality profiling with defects triaged to closure instead of parked on a backlog.
The critical data register, metadata and lineage administered for you as the estate changes.
The board page and quarterly pack produced by the office, with the evidence attached.
A shrink path in writing: functions hand over to your own hires as the team grows, and the fee steps down.
This is not
A body shop. The office is a function with published monthly outputs rather than day-rate capacity on a timesheet.
A software platform. No licences resold, no vendor commission. Tooling is chosen to fit your model, if at all.
A way to avoid ownership. Domain owners stay yours and decisions are made in your forum. The office equips them rather than replaces them.
A permanent arrangement by stealth. The retainer is designed to shrink, and the handover points are agreed in writing.
Where to start
How engagements usually begin
Four situations we are usually called into. If none of them fit, speak to us and we will point you at the right first step.
Why Intelance
What you can hold us to
One retainer with one accountable lead
The leadership and the hands under one agreement, so nothing falls between a strategist and a subcontractor.
A fee set by scope and agreed in writing
From £9,500 + VAT per month, priced by how many data areas you have and how often we run. Larger estates take a bigger office, and we say how much at scoping.
Outputs you can point to each month
Forum minutes, the quality trend, the register and the board pack: every month leaves evidence, so the retainer is checkable.
No products waiting at the end
No platform, no licences, no vendor commission. Tooling advice, where given, carries nothing behind it.
Designed to shrink
Handover points are agreed in writing: your first hire takes stewardship, your second takes quality operations, and the fee steps down. An outsourced function that fights to stay is a bad one.
The team on your engagement
The Data Governance Office is led by a senior data governance lead and staffed by senior consultants and established delivery partners.
Data governance guides
All insights
Data GovernanceWhy data governance is the foundation of safe AI
Every property you want from an AI system is inherited from the data beneath it. Why the governing has to start with the data, the five foundations AI needs, and a ten minute readiness test to run before any AI project is approved.
9 July 2026 · 6 min read Read the guide
AI GovernanceEnterprise AI governance in 2026: a practical blueprint for CIOs and boards
9 July 2026 · 8 min read
AI GovernanceWhat is AI governance? The seven questions boards should ask
9 July 2026 · 9 min read
AI GovernanceEU AI Act ISO 42001: how they fit together in your architecture
7 December 2025 · 10 min readReady to talk?
Tell us where data governance stands today
Thirty minutes with the lead who would run your office: what exists, who owns what and where the work is piling up. If Foundations built a model nobody has time to run, that is the most common starting point.
FAQs
Questions about the running service
What is data governance as a service?
The full data governance function delivered as a monthly retainer: senior leadership running the forum and reporting to the board, plus stewardship support, monthly quality profiling with defects triaged to closure, the register and lineage administered, new systems onboarded to standards and the reporting produced. It is also called outsourced or managed data governance.
How much does data governance as a service cost?
From £9,500 + VAT per month with Intelance, fixed in writing and priced by how many data areas you have and how often we run. For context, staffing the function yourself typically means three hires, three recruitment ramps and three retention risks before the first quality report, and UK data governance day rates run £1,100 to £2,400 per day.
What is the difference between a virtual CDO and a data governance office?
The Virtual CDO is the leadership alone: a named senior leader two to four days a month, right when your own people can do the operational work. The Data Governance Office adds the hands: stewardship support, quality profiling, register administration and the reporting produced. If leadership is the only gap, take the lighter option, and we will say so.
Can data governance be outsourced without losing control?
Yes, if ownership stays where it belongs. Your people own the domains, your forum makes the decisions and every artefact, register and report belongs to you. The office does the work that makes ownership practical: investigation, profiling, administration and reporting. Outsourcing the labour is safe. Outsourcing the decisions is not, and we design against it.
What does designed to shrink mean for an outsourced function?
The handover points are agreed in writing at take-on: your first data hire takes the stewardship work, your second takes quality operations, and the office steps down towards a Virtual CDO, then to nothing, with the fee stepping down at each point. An outsourced function that fights to stay is a bad one.
Do we need Data Governance Foundations first?
Not always. If an operating model exists, the office takes it on and runs it. If nothing exists, Foundations from £45,000 + VAT builds the model properly first, and the office then runs it. If you do not know what state the data is in, the QuickScan from £14,500 + VAT produces the evidence in ten working days.
What happens when a big programme lands?
The office keeps governance running through it: the programme is onboarded to standards, its data risks tracked in the forum and its impact on the register managed. Where the programme needs embedded, full-time data governance of its own, Project DG from £22,000 + VAT per month scales up alongside the office, scoped separately.
Can the office prepare our data for AI?
Yes, and it is often the reason the office gets funded. AI inherits the data underneath it: the quality baseline, ownership, register tiering and onboarding discipline the office maintains are exactly what AI readiness is made of. The AI Governance QuickScan from £15,000 + VAT pairs naturally where AI plans are already moving.