Surrey council digitises records with Box

Surrey Heath Borough Council has moved its employees to Box's collaboration platform, in a move to modernise working practices and digitise records that it then makes available to the people of Camberley.

The local authority currently services 35,000 homes in the area and digitising much of the data it holds means those living in the area can access old documents and files from between 1970 and 2005, which were previously unavailable to the general public.

Using Box Capture means photos and body cam footage can be stored, while the platform offers full audit logs if anything is lost.

"As a local authority, we are driven to provide secure, top-tier services to the borough," said James Rutter, Surrey Heath digital development manager. "We are a progressive IT team, and our previous content platform did not suit our agile aspirations. Box was the natural solution to better manage our content, and it is now a core part of our long-term strategy. With Box, we spend less time servicing databases, and more time with our users."

The integration is also improving the day-to-day collaboration between teams. Workers can edit, create and share documents via Box Notes and Office 365, while duplication is kept in check thanks to document version control.

David Benjamin, Box senior vice president and general manager of EMEA, said: "We are thrilled that by using Box, [the council] will reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and allow employees to focus on more important functions such as delivering essential services to the residents of Surrey Heath."

"In terms of local government technology, Box has become a cornerstone of what we do," added Rutter. "In a changing world of data protection and regulation such as GDPR, we have to be increasingly savvy, particularly around security. Box is a key component of preparing Surrey Heath for those changes."

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