The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that no payments to customer bank accounts have been affected by the global Microsoft outage, providing reassurance to state pensioners and benefits claimants expecting payment today.
Microsoft said services are being “gradually restored” after a major global outage that began on Thursday, disrupting millions of users and critical infrastructure across 74 countries. Police forces, the NHS, businesses and schools were among those impacted in one of the worst IT failures for years.
Impact on public services
The outage disrupted emergency services, with the GMB Union claiming it stopped 111 and 999 from referring patient details as they usually would. Great Western Railway warned travellers that the outage was affecting email ticket confirmations.
NHS England said health service staff were forced to “enact long-standing measures” to overcome IT outages, including using paper records. Patients were urged to continue contacting services such as 999 and 111 as necessary, and attend appointments as usual.
DWP helpline for affected customers
In an update this afternoon, the DWP gave a number for anyone with problems. It said: “No DWP payments to customer bank accounts have been affected by the Microsoft outage.
“If you use the Payment Exception Service and have been affected, call the helpline on 0800 015 2902. We can send your voucher by text or provide a voucher number over the phone.”
Recovery and concerns over resilience
The problem gradually cleared, with Microsoft saying its email services were “approaching normal levels”. It said: “We’re continuing to see improvements in service availability, with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels.
“Some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues.”
Dame Chi Onwurah, chairwoman of the Science and Technology Committee, said: “The global Microsoft outage only serves to highlight once again the lack of resilience in the UK’s digital infrastructure and the dangers that this dependency can pose to our security, economy and public services.
“My committee’s report on delivering a digital government concluded that the UK is hugely dependent on a small number of US-based technology providers for our public services, preventing homegrown alternatives from developing.
“In its response, the Government could not tell us how much it was spending on IT and digital – or who it was spending it with – without even knowing this, how can we protect against vendor lock-in or achieve the resilience and digital sovereignty the UK needs?”
