Leicester City Council: Weeks of disruption after 'cyber incident'

Residents have been urged to only call the council in an emergency

A "cyber incident" that affected Leicester City Council's online systems could cause a fortnight of disruption, the authority has warned.

The council says it shut its IT and phone systems down "as a precaution" on Thursday, "as soon as" the issue was discovered.

It is now working to bring those systems back online in a "safe and controlled manner", the authority says.

The body warned it will "take time" for all systems to be fully working again.

Council officers have not given further detail about the nature of the incident.

They added investigations were under way into whether any personal information had been accessed, with help from law enforcement colleagues and "cyber incident response specialists".

'Recovery phase'

The council said it would inform "any people at risk" if it became aware their data had been compromised.

Among the services impacted are housing benefits and other financial support payments which have been delayed, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Direct debits to the council could also be affected, with the body saying it will arrange collection with residents if it is unable to take scheduled payments automatically.

Strategic director of city development and neighbourhood services at the council, Richard Sword, said: "The good news is that we've now got the all-clear to start bringing our systems back online in a safe and controlled manner, and have formally entered the recovery phase of our response to this incident.

"While we aim to get our staff reconnected as quickly and safely as possible, it's clear that it could take at least two weeks before full functionality is restored across our network and all services are back online - and unfortunately there will be delays, as we work through the backlog created by the shutdown."