Microsoft outage hits Glasgow City Council, schools and health boards across Scotland
Email and Teams went down from about 6pm on Thursday 12 November. Glasgow City Council asked people not to use online forms or email, and schools texted parents. Microsoft says services are being restored.
File image of office computers. Email and Teams were disrupted for public bodies across Scotland. · Photograph: Håkan Dahlström (CC BY 2.0)
A global Microsoft outage that began at about 6pm on Thursday 12 November 2026 disrupted email and Teams at Glasgow City Council, schools, other councils and health boards across Scotland.
Services were returning to normal on Friday 13 November, with Microsoft saying traffic was being "gradually restored", STV News reports.
How is Glasgow affected?
Glasgow City Council said some of its services were disrupted. In a statement the council said: "We're experiencing disruption to some services due to a global Microsoft outage. Please avoid using online forms or sending email for now. We'll update when services are back."
It added: "Schools have texted parents/carers – please phone your school, if needed."
Which other Scottish services were hit?
Councils including East Lothian, West Lothian, Midlothian, Dundee, Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Argyll and Bute reported problems, with several asking residents to phone instead of emailing. NHS Grampian and Scottish Water also reported issues, and Police Scotland confirmed its online forms, including ContactUs, were affected.
Justice Secretary Neil Gray said the Scottish Government's resilience operation had been activated. "While this is currently impacting some of the Scottish Government's corporate systems, including access to emails, Scottish Government business continues," he said.
What has Microsoft said?
Microsoft says services are recovering. Executive vice-president Charles Lamanna said on Friday afternoon: "We're seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected infrastructure."
He said the company regretted the impact and that the outages did not appear to be the result of a cyber attack. Microsoft warned that some users may still see intermittent connection problems or delayed email, and said an extended 48-hour email timeout window is in place to protect delayed messages.
What should I do if I need to contact the council or a school?
Phone instead of emailing until services are confirmed as back to normal. Glasgow City Council has asked people not to use online forms or email for now, and parents should phone their child's school if they need to get in touch.
What happens next?
Microsoft says it is working through email backlogs and reviewing what went wrong. Glasgow City Council has said it will update residents when its services are back. This story is accurate as of Friday evening.