The Scottish Government has activated its resilience operations in response to the global Microsoft outage, as it works to assess the impact on services across Scotland.
Justice Secretary Neil Gray confirmed that ministers are liaising with key partners, while stressing that the government "remains operational and business continues."
Impact on Public Services
The move comes after councils and other public services were hit with technology problems that left millions worldwide without access to emails and Teams. The tech giant said it was working with "urgency" to find a fix for the issue, which has caused widespread disruption since late Thursday, affecting governments, banks, police forces and health services.
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."
Stabilisation Efforts
The problem developed on Thursday evening, with Microsoft saying on Friday that it was "seeing early signs of stabilisation." However, the company 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. In a statement on X, the force said: "Due to the global Microsoft outage, our online forms are affected, including ContactUs. 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."
Local Authorities Affected
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."
Many of Scotland's local authorities are experiencing the same problems. 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."
