Online services for multiple councils have been knocked offline after an outage at a Capita data centre.
An issue is said to have emerged at around 22:30 on Wednesday evening that affected Capita Pay360 customers.
One customer told The Register: “According to rumour, there was a power failure in West Malling and the generators failed, shutting the whole data centre down.”
Sites that have been brought down include Sheffield City Council, which Tweeted on the 25th: “Due to technical difficulties, we are unable to take any calls at the moment. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Just an hour ago and the Sheffield Council Help Twitter account was still Tweeting about its systems being down.
A Capita spokesperson said that a technical fault in one of its data centres had resulted in “some clients experiencing some issues with the availability of their IT service.” Services are currently in the process of being restored with others also being tested.
The sites affected are predominantly those in the public sector. This is due to Capita being one of the largest providers of tech services to the sector.
Recently a joint venture between Capita and Birmingham City Council, which dates back to 2006, was “dissolved” three years before it was due to end.
The end of the deal is thought to save the council around £12m a year.
