Scottish Government spent £6.5m on Microsoft 365 licences
The Scottish Government has also had to convene its resilience room as a global Microsoft outage hits
The Scottish Government spends millions of pounds a year on Microsoft services such as Outlook and Teams.
According to the previous SNP government, the government spent over £6.5 million on Microsoft 365 in 2024/25.
According to a parliamentary question asked by the now presiding officer Kenny Gibson in June 2025, the government spent £6,514,529.39 on Microsoft 365 licences.
Ivan McKee, the then public finance minister, said: “The Scottish Government spent a total of £6,514,529.39 on Microsoft 365 licences in the most recent financial year, through the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.
“This figure includes all licences held under the SCOTS Connect tenancy, which supports both Scottish Government core and non-core customers.”
The UK government’s cyber minister, Baroness Lloyd of Effra, said there had been “limited reports of impact on frontline service delivery” and the incident had been “inconvenient and disruptive”.
“The government recognises this incident has been inconvenient and disruptive,” she said.
“Affected departments and public sector organisations have plans in place for these events to mitigate potential impacts and continue their business operations.
“Throughout the day, we have seen limited reports of impact on frontline service delivery, and I encourage people to follow advice from the services they need on alternative ways to get in touch where email or web forms may be unavailable.”
She said 999 and NHS 111 calls were unaffected, while HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Work and Pensions phone lines remained fully operational, although waiting times may have been longer than usual.
The chaos caused by the Microsoft outage has fuelled concerns about the UK’s reliance on foreign tech firms.
The Commons Science and Technology Committee has previously highlighted the “strategic and economic vulnerability” of the UK using a small number of US-based providers for its digital infrastructure and delivery of public services.
Committee chairwoman Dame Chi Onwurah said: “The global Microsoft outage only serves to highlight once again the lack of resilience in the UK’s digital infrastructure, and the dangers that this dependency can pose to our security, economy and public services.
“My committee’s report on delivering a digital government concluded that the UK is hugely dependent on a small number of US-based technology providers for our public services, preventing homegrown alternatives from developing.
“In its response, the Government could not tell us how much it was spending on IT and digital or who it was spending it with – without even knowing this, how can we protect against vendor lock-in or achieve the resilience and digital sovereignty the UK needs?”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “From GPs and ambulances to the police and businesses – key parts of our society shouldn’t grind to a halt because one US tech giant has a bad day.
“Ministers talk about digital sovereignty, but today’s chaos makes clear: we don’t need more talk and delay, we need action now. “
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