Nottingham City Council has recognised the ‘exceptional efforts of colleagues’ who worked around the clock to manage and recover from a major business continuity incident at Loxley House earlier this year.
On 12 March 2025, a sudden and catastrophic failure in the building’s electrical safety circuit caused a full power outage and resulted in significant disruption to IT systems. Although the emergency generator was fully fuelled and operational, the fault prevented power from reaching the network, leading to an unprecedented loss of key on-site systems.
Despite the scale and complexity of the incident, Council teams acted immediately to protect critical services, support residents and restore operations as quickly as possible, with minimal disruption to residents.
- IT and Facilities teams were on site within hours, invoking business continuity plans and carrying out urgent diagnostics.
- Emergency Planning activated the Council’s Gold and Silver command structures, bringing together officers from every directorate to coordinate the response and maintain essential services.
- Communications provided timely, clear and frequent updates to colleagues, councillors and the public. Between 13 and 21 March, nine staff emails, seven emergency text alerts, 30 social media posts and three public statements were issued – ensuring full transparency throughout.
- Critical frontline services continued, including Housing Aid, telecare and safeguarding functions, with workarounds implemented where needed.
- Cloud-based systems remained operational, meaning most colleagues retained access to email and Teams and were able to continue supporting residents.
Temporary power was restored by late morning on 13 March, and full systems recovery continued steadily over the following days. All services were restored the following week.
Lessons learned and next steps
A full debrief took place in May, attended by representatives across the organisation and the independent Commissioner. The review highlighted:
- Strong cross-council collaboration and a clear “can-do” approach
- Effective leadership through Gold and Silver command
- Outstanding commitment from technical teams
- The vital role of established emergency planning and business continuity arrangements
- The importance of clear internal and external communication throughout the incident
A series of recommendations has now been agreed and assigned to relevant service areas. These include measures to strengthen electrical resilience, improve server redundancy, and further enhance the Council’s emergency planning and communication systems.
The Senior Resilience Group and Corporate Leadership Team will monitor progress, with a further update scheduled for March 2026.
Cllr Ethan Radford, Executive Member for Finance and Resources, said:
“This was an unprecedented incident and one that tested our systems and our organisation. The response from colleagues across the Council – from IT and Facilities to Emergency Planning, Communications and frontline teams – was exceptional.
“Thanks to their professionalism and dedication, essential services continued, the most vulnerable residents remained supported, and we recovered quickly and safely. We have also taken the opportunity to learn from the incident and strengthen our resilience for the future.”
• Report reveals scale of March power outage that paralysed Nottingham City Council systems
