The move to electronic documents and online team collaboration is a key enabling component of the council's plan to shave £70 million off its annual operating budget. Bristol's move towards council-wide open source adoption to save money started in 2010, and won central government support at the end of last year.

The new, open source Alfresco software will allow staff to access electronic documents online from any location, reducing dependence on paper, and it will give project teams the ability to share information virtually through a collaboration platform.

Gavin Beckett, chief enterprise architect at Bristol City Council, said: "Alfresco offers a rich set of features in a user-friendly package with the additional bonus of being an open source platform, which means we can use it right across the board without having to spend large sums on licences.

"The other advantage of open source and open standards is that barriers are removed for SME's and local ICT suppliers to collaborate with the council."

Using Alfresco for document and digital asset management and Drupal for the front-end of its website, the council's new platform will enable efficiency improvements to a variety of council services. In one project under development, landlords applying for licences for houses in multiple occupation will be able to submit their applications online, with Alfresco managing the workflow for that documentation.