Scottish government activates resilience operations after Microsoft outage

Justice Secretary Neil Gray said ministers were liaising with key partners – but stresses that the government “remains operational and business continues”.

He spoke out after councils and other public services were hit with technology problems that left millions without access to emails and Teams around the world.

The tech giant said it was working with “urgency ” to find a fix for the issue, which has caused widespread disruption since late Thursday, with governments, banks, police forces and health services among those hit.

Mr Gray said: “The Scottish Government’s resilience operation has been activated to assess the main impacts on Scotland of the global outage impacting some of Microsoft’s Cloud Services.”

He added: “We are liaising with partners across public services as they assess the impacts and continue providing key frontline services.

“While this is currently impacting some of the Scottish Government’s corporate systems, including access to emails, the Scottish Government remains operational and business continues.”

Councils and public services in Scotland are among those affected as a result of the ongoing global Microsoft outage.

The problem developed on Thursday evening and with Microsoft saying on Friday that it was “seeing early signs of stabilisation”.

But it cautioned: “Service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels and health remains variable as traffic is carefully reintroduced.”

Police Scotland reported problems with its emails and online forms – but stressed people could still call them if needed.

A spokesperson for the force said: “Due to the global Microsoft outage our online forms are affected which includes the Contact Us form.

“We are unable to receive any emails and there may be a delay in responding to any forms sent to us in the last 24 hours as this outage continues.”

The spokesperson added: “We will advise when this has been resolved. In a non-emergency, please call 101 and in the event of an emergency, please call 999.”

An NHS Grampian spokesperson said: “NHS Grampian is affected by the Outlook outage this morning which means that staff and services are currently unable to access e-mails.

“Telephone lines and all other systems are working as normal.”

The courts service is impacted by the Microsoft outage. It says urgent enquiries relating to cases today and on Monday need to be done by telephone.

In a statement the service said: “Due to the worldwide Microsoft outage, generic email inboxes within the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service are not operational.

“For any urgent enquiries, including matters relating to hearings today or Monday, please contact the local court or tribunal by telephone.

“Email enquiries will be responded to when the service returns.”

Many of Scotland’s local authorities are experiencing the same problems, and a spokesperson for the City of Edinburgh Council wrote: “Due to a worldwide Microsoft outage, we are unable to send or receive emails at this time, and some of our online forms are not available.

“If you need to get in touch with us, please contact us by telephone.”

East Lothian Council added: “Due to a worldwide Microsoft outage, we are not able to send and receive emails at present.

“If you need to contact the council, please contact us by telephone. Our main number is 01620 827827.

“Any parents/carers should telephone their child’s school if needing to get in touch.”

The Scottish Borders Council said: “Due to a global issue affecting Microsoft we are experiencing issues with various systems, including our emails and some contact forms.

“If you need to reach us urgently please call 0300 100 1800.

“If you need to contact a school urgently, please call rather than email.”