Bristol City Council has launched a twelve-month pilot deploying Nextcloud Hub 8 as a self-hosted alternative to Microsoft 365 for approximately 800 staff in its planning and housing departments. The pilot, supported by local digital cooperative Techshed, aims to evaluate data sovereignty, cost, and usability before a potential wider rollout. Bristol joins a small but growing group of UK local authorities exploring open source productivity suites amid rising Microsoft licensing costs.

Source: Local Government Chronicle