Located in Northern England, Rossendale Borough Council is in the Rossendale district of Lancashire’s local authority. The Council’s responsibilities include checking the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas, preventing neighboring towns from merging, safeguarding the countryside, preserving the character of historic towns, and encouraging recycling.
The challenge
Like many other government organizations, Rossendale Borough Council needed to adhere to strict security information management regulations and compliance set forth by the UK-GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018). Working with highly classified information across all levels, the Council needed to deliver information securely and accurately, while being highly responsive to meet customer needs.
Before implementing Egress Secure Workspace, the Council tried using one popular web-based collaboration platform. However, they found that proved too complex, inflexible, and costly to manage as their go-to secure file sharing solution — and an upcoming 30% price increase made it an even less attractive option.
Without secure file transfer technology in place, the Council was forced to share information via encrypted DVDs and USB sticks, adopting highly bureaucratic processes to ensure compliance. And because the Council didn’t allow users to copy data onto external drives, all data copy requests had to go through the information and communications technology (ICT) team.
End users often had problems accessing the data, turning what should’ve been a half-day job into a cumbersome process that could take weeks. This resulted in customer dissatisfaction and a delay to provide key information to a range of stakeholders.
...the best thing about Egress is that it saved lives during the pandemic. It allowed us to share our critical NHS data with emergency services effectively, so they could stop at the homes of those who were elderly or suffering. We know Egress saved lives.
Andrew Buckle, Head of Customer Services & ICT at Rossendale Borough Council
The solution
The Rossendale Borough Council needed a file-sharing solution that was scalable, easy-to-use, and highly secure. The Council considered several technology solutions but found most of them over-engineered, overly complex, difficult for end users, and incapable of effectively handling large file sizes.
After speaking to customer references and development team members, the Council ultimately selected Egress based on its ease-of-use, speed, flexibility, security, and compliance. The Council believes that, had they not switched from their previous solution to Egress, they wouldn’t have had the flexibility to manage through the Covid pandemic and continue to meet customer expectations.
Egress has not only solved the problem but has also resulted in significant cost avoidance by switching from their prior solution.
When we were evaluating solutions, we were looking for very specific things. What’s the size of it? How flexible is it? Is it easy from a customer experience point of view? Is it secure? We looked at speed, size, flexibility, setup, usability, and security. And Egress Secure Workspace gives us a big check on each one of those boxes.
Andrew Buckle, Head of Customer Services & ICT at Rossendale Borough Council
The results
Secure Workspace enabled the Council to quickly adapt to the changing ways of work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because Secure Workspace is flexible and quick to scale, it allowed for the Council to easily engage with a variety of customers, Central Government, the NHS, Police, Local Authorities, businesses, and third-party voluntary sectors. This frictionless transition allowed for the Council to securely grant access where needed, with speed and without the threat of accidental loss of sensitive information.
- Helping saving lives: Egress facilitated the external sharing of critical National Health Service (NHS) data during the pandemic, enabling life-saving work
- More flexibility: Egress’ flexibility allowed the Council to share data with Central Government, emergency services, and voluntary sectors during the pandemic, allowing critical work to continue remotely
- Better user experience: A greatly enhanced user experience made transferring and receiving information hassle-free and straightforward