A major power failure that hit Nottingham City Council’s headquarters at Loxley House in March 2025 caused widespread IT disruption and forced the authority to invoke full emergency continuity procedures, a new report reveals.
The incident, which took place on the evening of 12 March, caused what officials described as a “catastrophic event” affecting the building’s electrical safety circuit and high-voltage switchgear.
The failure triggered the emergency Universal Power Supply system — designed to keep essential areas such as the server room and lighting operational for around 15 minutes while the backup generator starts — but the generator did not start due to damage to the switchgear.
Although the generator was later confirmed to be in full working order, the power it produced could not reach the building’s systems.
With no electricity supply, the council’s IT servers were forced offline, bringing down multiple core services that rely on in-house infrastructure. Microsoft cloud-based services such as Teams and Outlook continued to operate, but many other systems failed, and significant reconfiguration work was required once power was restored.
The first signs of the outage were detected in the early hours of 13 March when a 24/7 service reported a loss of telephony at 4.17am. IT engineers confirmed a complete power failure by 6.10am and invoked the council’s Business Continuity Plan within minutes. Facilities Management staff were on site shortly after 6.30am, and external contractors arrived between 8.10am and 10.30am to begin emergency work.
By 7.35am, the council’s Emergency Planning team had activated command and control structures and convened a “City Silver” meeting with representatives from all departments and specialist advisers. A total of 19 Silver and five Gold meetings were held over the following days, including weekends, to manage the incident.
Communications played a key role in keeping staff, councillors, and the public informed. The first internal update was sent at 8.17am, followed by a public statement on social media at 8.22am. Between 13 and 21 March, nine all-staff emails, seven emergency text alerts, 30 social media posts, and three formal public updates were issued, alongside information bulletins on the council’s website.
Initial repairs began later on 13 March, when battery systems were replaced and temporary measures put in place to restore limited power. However, engineers could not guarantee that the outage would not recur until full repairs were completed on 21 March. A 24-hour security and electrical engineer presence was maintained during this period to mitigate risk.
Once IT services confirmed that reliable power could not be guaranteed, operations were switched to the council’s disaster recovery site. Non-essential IT work was suspended, and 4G-enabled laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots were issued to key staff to maintain communication.
Priority for system restoration was set through the Silver Command structure, focusing on “line of business” applications to ensure that essential services — including those supporting vulnerable residents — were back online as quickly as possible. Temporary contact arrangements were put in place for the public on the first day of the incident, ensuring that no critical services, such as Housing Aid, were halted.
Despite the significant disruption, most services continued operating through cloud systems and remote working, aided by the council’s hybrid working arrangements. By the following week, beginning 17 March, all systems had been restored and temporary power repairs were in place.
A formal “hot debrief” was held on 21 March, followed by a full structured debrief at Loxley House on 21 May, attended by council staff, resilience officers, and a government-appointed commissioner. The review examined the technical causes of the failure and assessed the council’s response, risk management, and future prevention measures.
Participants reported that, while the incident was highly disruptive, it demonstrated strong internal collaboration and effective crisis leadership. The report highlights what it called a “‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Can-do’ spirit” across departments, commending IT teams for working long hours and maintaining critical functions such as payments and communications.
The debrief also identified a series of lessons learned and recommendations, which have been distributed to relevant council working groups and service areas for implementation. These include improvements to power resilience at Loxley House and enhanced planning to minimise disruption in any similar future incident.
