Key Points
- A global Microsoft service outage has disrupted daily online operations for staff at Croydon Council, including those working at Fisher’s Folly.
- Residents attempting to report missed bin collections carried out by rubbish contractors Veolia via the council’s mobile application could not complete their submissions.
- The reporting failure occurred because the council’s automated system requires users to verify complaints via an email confirmation, which was inaccessible during the outage.
- The technical failure impacted Microsoft’s Outlook email system, the Teams meeting platform, and the Copilot artificial intelligence tool.
- Traditional, non-digital street cleaning operations in Croydon continued unaffected, with street sweepers working across the borough as normal.
- The global outage began in the United States at approximately 6pm London time the previous evening before spreading across the Asia-Pacific region and Europe as the business day started.
Croydon (South London News) November 13, 2026 – Staff working at Fisher’s Folly and across the London Borough of Croydon struggled to execute basic online council functions today following a widespread global Microsoft outage that directly halted the processing of missed bin collection reports.
The disruption prevented local residents from completing service complaints regarding rubbish contractors Veolia. According to reporting by Inside Croydon, residents who attempted to log a missed bin collection through the local authority’s mobile application—referred to by the publication as the “CrapApp”—were unable to finalise their reports. This bottleneck occurred because Croydon Council’s automated reporting system requires residents to confirm their submission via a follow-up email, a function rendered largely unusable by the software failure.
The technical issues stem from a broader service failure affecting the world’s largest computer software supplier. Inside Croydon reported that the outage compromised several core enterprise tools used by the local authority, specifically disrupting the Outlook email system, the Teams communication and meeting platform, and Microsoft’s artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot.
Despite the paralysis of Mayor Jason Perry’s “digital first” administrative systems, offline municipal operations continued without interruption. Inside Croydon noted that the council’s street sweepers remained active across the borough, carrying out manual street cleaning duties with brooms without any reliance on digital infrastructure or artificial intelligence tools.
When Did the Global Microsoft Outage Begin?
The disruption in south London formed part of an international technical failure that unfolded across multiple time zones. As reported by Inside Croydon, the Microsoft outage was initially detected in the United States at around 6pm London time yesterday evening.
The scale of the disruption became fully apparent over the subsequent hours. As the working day commenced in the Asia-Pacific region and later progressed into Europe, businesses, public institutions, and software users experienced widespread interruptions to their cloud-based services.
What Is the Background to Croydon Council’s Digital Systems and Waste Services?
Croydon Council operates under a “digital first” administrative model overseen by Executive Mayor Jason Perry, which channels routine resident interactions, service requests, and administrative workflows through automated online portals and mobile applications. For waste management and street cleansing, the local authority contracts its operations to the environmental services firm Veolia. When domestic waste or recycling collections are missed, residents are directed to use the council’s digital reporting mechanisms to trigger an automated verification process before a follow-up collection is scheduled.
How Could This Outage Affect Croydon Residents and Local Authorities?
For Croydon residents, immediate disruptions to automated email verification systems create delays in resolving basic municipal issues, such as uncollected household waste, until digital backlogs are cleared by council staff and contractors. For local authorities and public sector organisations that rely heavily on single-vendor cloud ecosystems like Microsoft 365 for both internal communications and public-facing service portals, widespread software outages highlight operational vulnerabilities when automated digital workflows lack offline or manual fallback procedures.
