Rotherham Council services disrupted by global Microsoft issues

Rotherham Council has warned residents they may struggle to access some services or contact the authority due to a global issue affecting Microsoft.

The council has posted an alert on its website warning that the disruption could affect its online services and usual contact methods.

A notice reads: “We're aware of the global issues affecting Microsoft. This may mean you can't access some of our services or contact us in the way you usually do.”

Residents needing urgent assistance are being advised to call 01709 382121.

The council has not specified which services are affected or when normal access is expected to resume.

The warning comes as Microsoft battles a major worldwide outage affecting services including Outlook, Teams and Microsoft 365.

Problems began on Thursday evening (November 12), with users reporting difficulties accessing emails, files and other online services, affecting businesses and public-sector organisations around the world.

Microsoft said parts of its infrastructure were experiencing unusually high demand, causing connectivity problems across multiple regions.

Initial attempts to restore services did not work as expected, although the company subsequently reported signs of improvement as engineers continued working on a fix.

The company has said there is no indication that the disruption was caused by a cyber attack.

The outage has also affected government services internationally, with organisations in Australia, Japan and elsewhere reporting disruption.