Police and councils in Bedfordshire affected by Microsoft outage
Urgent advice issued as online services affected by IT gremlins
Police and councils in Bedfordshire have been affected by the Microsoft outage today (November 13).
Bedfordshire Police, Central Bedfordshire Council and Bedford Borough Council have all reported problems with their online services.
The IT issues have hit countries across the globe - and services including Teams, Outlook and AI software Copilot have been affected. Microsoft is working to fix the issue.
Bedfordshire Police stated: “Due to the current global Microsoft outage, we are unable to take online reports via the reporting tool on our website, or access any online reports made to us over the last few hours.
“If you need to report anything non-urgent to us, please call 101 or use our webchat service via beds.police.uk.”
Meanwhile, people are reminded to always call 999 in an emergency.
Central Bedfordshire Council stated: “We're aware of a global Microsoft service outage, which may be affecting access to some of our online services.
“We're monitoring the situation and apologise for any inconvenience.”
Bedford Borough Council says its “services may be affected today” - including their access to email and “some online forms”.
It stated: “If you have an urgent safeguarding issue, please call the Safeguarding Adults Team on 01234 276222, or the Children's Integrated Front Door on 01234 718700. If you think a child is in immediate danger, please call the police on 999.
“If you have any other urgent issues, the council can be called on 01234 267422, but please be aware that there will be a higher volume of calls than usual.
“Thank you for your patience.”
Luton Borough Council has been approached for comment.
Meanwhile, ministers are being briefed on the outages and contingency plans are in place for disrupted services as the Government seeks to figure out the “full picture” of the impact, Downing Street has said.
The Prime Minister’s deputy spokeswoman said: “We’re working with departments and with Microsoft to establish the full picture, and where services are disrupted, departments have contingency arrangements in place.
“You’ll obviously appreciate this is an ongoing situation, but in the meantime, people are encouraged to follow advice on the services they require for alternative ways to get in touch.”
The spokeswoman said ministers are being kept regularly updated and that a “range of services” are experiencing disruption as parts of the Government use Microsoft.
She added: “Frontline services have their own contingency arrangements, and departments are working to make sure essential services keep running.”