Data governance · Fixed fee, senior delivered
Data Governance Foundations: a data governance operating model built to run
Most data governance dies as a policy pack. Foundations builds the operating model itself: named owners who accepted the job in writing, stewardship sized into real diaries, a forum with decision rights, standards people can operate, and a quality baseline measured from month one. Critical domains first, piloted on live decisions, handed over running. From £45,000 + VAT, fixed in writing before day one.
Foundations at a glance
Definition
What is a data governance operating model?
A data governance operating model defines how an organisation’s data gets owned and managed: who owns each critical domain and has accepted the job, how stewardship works inside real diaries, which forum makes data decisions and how often, which standards apply and how exceptions are handled, and how quality is measured, trended and reported to the board. It is the difference between governance that runs and a policy pack that gathers dust.
Intelance Data Governance Foundations builds that operating model for a fixed fee from £45,000 + VAT over three to nine months: critical domains first, designed with the people who will run it, piloted on live decisions and handed over documented, rehearsed and running. A data governance framework off the shelf describes what good looks like in general. The operating model is your names, your forums, your standards and your numbers, working.
The build usually starts from evidence: many clients run the Data Governance QuickScan first, so the model rests on profiled fact rather than opinion. 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 model has to carry next.
Named owners
Every critical domain has a person who was asked and said yes, in writing.
Stewardship with hours
The work is sized into real diaries, with deputies and cover.
A forum that decides
Decision rights and escalation routes, exercised on live decisions.
Numbers from month one
A quality baseline, measured, trended, owned and reported.
The failure modes
Six reasons data governance dies inside a year
Every failed data governance programme we are called into broke in at least one of these six places. Foundations is engineered against each one, and every card says what gets built instead.
Ownership by job title
The “data owner” is a role description in a policy rather than a person who was asked and said yes. Decisions stall exactly there.
Built insteadNamed owners who accepted the job, domain by domain, in writing.Stewardship without time
Stewards appointed with fanfare, diaries unchanged, and the work quietly returns to nobody within a quarter.
Built insteadStewardship sized into real diaries, in hours per week, with deputies and cover.The council that stops meeting
Month three: half attendance. Month six: postponed. Month eight: nobody notices it has gone.
Built insteadA forum with decisions to make and escalations to settle, chaired by an owner.Policies nobody can operate
Thirty pages of principle, zero worked examples, and a business that keeps doing what it always did.
Built insteadStandards with worked examples for each domain, proportionate by design.Governance without numbers
No baseline, no trend, no proof: the programme cannot show it changed anything, so the funding stops.
Built insteadA quality baseline measured from month one, trended, owned and reported.No link to the money
Systems bought, programmes launched and AI adopted, with data governance consulted afterwards, if at all.
Built insteadGovernance wired into investment and change decisions from day one.How it works
The five stages from diagnosis to handover
Foundations runs in five stages over three to nine months. The pilot is the point: nothing is declared done until it has run on live decisions in your critical domains.
Diagnose from the evidence
How data is owned today: decisions, incidents and quality complaints rather than the org chart. QuickScan findings drop straight in, so nothing is profiled twice.
Design with the owners
The model is designed with the people who will run it. Ownership is asked for, and accepted, in the room.
Pilot on live decisions
The forum, standards and escalation routes run for real in one or two critical domains before anything rolls out wider.
Embed the rhythm
Quality reporting, exception handling and the meeting cadence become part of how the organisation already meets and decides.
Hand over a running model
Documented, rehearsed and owned. Your team takes it on, or a Virtual CDO runs it with you.
Every stage leaves artefacts your team keeps: the ownership map, terms of reference, domain standards and the quality baseline. If the evidence does not exist yet, the Data Governance QuickScan produces it in ten working days.
Published fees
The services around Foundations
Foundations sits in a family of data governance services, each priced before you choose it. Nothing obliges you to take the next step.
Data Governance QuickScan
Ten working days of profiled evidence: ownership, quality, lineage, access, law and AI readiness, scored per critical data set and every gap costed.Best whenYou want the model built on measured fact, or need the case for budget first. FeeFrom £14,500 + VAT10 working days 02
Project DG
A senior data lead inside your ERP, migration or AI programme, running governance where the money is already moving.Best whenA live programme cannot wait for the full build. FeeFrom £22,000 + VAT / month 03Virtual CDO
Senior data leadership run monthly: the owner of the operating model after handover, without the permanent hire.Best whenThe model is built and nobody senior owns the agenda. FeeFrom £7,500 + VAT / month 04Data Governance Office as a Service
The whole function run for you to an agreed standard: forums chaired, standards maintained, quality measured and reported.Best whenYou want the outcome without building the capability in house. FeeFrom £9,500 + VAT / monthThe alternatives
How Foundations compares with the alternatives
Three ways organisations buy data governance. The difference is what still exists a year after the consultants leave.
A framework deck and a policy library, adapted from a template
Consultants write, your teams receive
The pack describes decisions. It does not make them
The PDF
An enterprise-wide programme: every domain at once, a catalogue platform, a large blended team
A programme team governs while the business watches from the side
After tooling, workshops and onboarding, often a year in
Whatever the business adopted before the fatigue set in
An operating model for your critical domains, built with the people who will run it, from £45,000 + VAT
Your owners and stewards, with us alongside until handover
Inside the pilot, in your first critical domain
The owners, the forum, the standards and the numbers, because your people ran them from the start
Scope
What this covers and what it leaves out
You get
A domain ownership map with named owners who accepted the job, in writing.
Stewardship designed into real diaries, sized in hours per week, with deputies and cover.
A decision forum with terms of reference that carry decision rights and escalation routes.
Data standards per domain with worked examples, proportionate to the risk each domain carries.
A measured quality baseline with monthly trend reporting a board reads.
This is not
A policy library. Documents exist to make the model operable. None is written for a shelf.
A tooling project. Catalogues and quality platforms come after the model, chosen to fit it. We sell no software and take no commission.
A permanent consultant presence. The model is designed, piloted and handed over to run without us.
A big-bang rollout. Critical domains first. The rest follow on the evidence of the pilot.
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
A fixed fee in writing
From £45,000 + VAT, fixed by scope after a scoping call. UK day rates of £1,100 to £2,400 are how governance builds drift. This one cannot.
Built with your people
Every artefact is co-produced with the owners and stewards who will run it, because adoption is the deliverable rather than the documents.
Piloted before declared done
The forum, standards and escalation routes run on live decisions in your critical domains before anything is rolled out wider.
No products waiting at the end
No platform, no licences, no vendor commission. Tooling advice, where given, carries nothing behind it.
Designed for handover
The engagement ends with your team, or a Virtual CDO, running the model. A build that creates dependency has failed.
The team on your engagement
Every Foundations build is led end to end by a senior data governance lead, supported 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 how data gets owned today
Thirty minutes with the person who would build your operating model: which domains matter, who owns them today and what happens when quality fails. If nobody can answer, that is where Foundations starts.
FAQs
Questions about Foundations
What is a data governance operating model?
The working machinery of data governance: named owners per critical domain who accepted the job, stewardship sized into real diaries, a forum with decision rights, standards with worked examples and a quality baseline measured, trended and reported. It is the difference between governance that runs and a policy pack that gathers dust.
How much does it cost to implement data governance?
Data Governance Foundations runs from £45,000 + VAT with Intelance, fixed by scope and agreed in writing before day one, over three to nine months. For context, UK data governance day rates typically run £1,100 to £2,400 per day, which is why open ended builds grow. If you need evidence before budget, the Data Governance QuickScan runs from £14,500 + VAT in ten working days.
How long does it take to implement data governance?
Three to nine months for Foundations, depending on the number of domains and entities. Larger and multi-entity estates take longer, and we say which at scoping. The first live decisions run through the pilot forum well before the end, because the build starts in your critical domains rather than waiting for an enterprise rollout.
Why do data governance programmes fail?
Six failure modes account for most of it: ownership by job title rather than acceptance, stewardship without diary time, councils that quietly stop meeting, policies without worked examples, no measured baseline, and no link to investment and change decisions. Foundations is engineered against each one, and the pilot proves it on live decisions before rollout.
What is the difference between a data governance framework and an operating model?
A framework, such as DAMA-DMBOK, is a reference: it describes the disciplines good data management covers. An operating model is your instance of it: named owners, sized stewardship, a forum with decision rights, standards with worked examples and a measured baseline. Frameworks inform the design. Only an operating model does the governing.
What does a data steward do?
Data stewardship is the working layer of the model: applying the domain standards, monitoring quality against the baseline, resolving or escalating exceptions and preparing decisions for the forum. In Foundations the role is sized in hours per week inside real diaries, with deputies and cover, because unsized stewardship is how the work returns to nobody.
Should data governance start with a data catalogue tool?
No. A catalogue documents what exists. It cannot decide who owns anything or what standard applies. Tools bought before the model exists become expensive inventories. Build ownership, standards and the forum first, then choose tooling to fit them. We sell no software and take no commission, so that advice is clean.
Who runs the operating model after handover?
Your team, by design: the pilot and embed stages are run by your owners and stewards with us alongside, so handover is a formality rather than a cliff. Where nobody senior can own the agenda, the Virtual CDO from £7,500 + VAT per month or the Data Governance Office as a Service from £9,500 + VAT per month runs it with you.