Computer saysno . . . system crash affects every north school

Technology: Router problem brings down some community libraries

A fault caused the computer systems at every school in the Highlands to crash yesterday.

The local authority said that a problem with one of its routers at Highland Council’s headquarters at Glenurquhart Road in Inverness caused the failure.

All schools in the Highlands were a ff e cted throughout the day, it confirmed, as well as 11 community libraries.

The systems suffered a loss of connectivity, with users unable to log on to the internet or the network.

The phone system at some of the schools and libraries was also down because it was linked to the computers. A council spokeswoman said that in such scenarios the affected schools can use mobile phones or backup fax lines if available.

A new router was ordered and the faulty one replaced, with all services expected to be up- andrunning again last night.

The libraries within community schools that were affected were Fortrose, Gairloch, Ullapool , Dingwall , Aviemore, Inshes, Portee, Ardnamurchan , Glenurquhart, Caol Library and Kinlochleven.

Highland Council has suffered from a series of problems with its IT services at council offices and schools in recent years.

The Press and Journal reported in July that the authority was seeking a new company to take over the running of the services.

Fujitsu won a £66million, five-year contract to run the services in 2009 and was awarded an 18month extension in 2013.

Its performance was repeatedly criticised when project deadlines were missed and complaints were made about the number of computers provided in schools.

A spokes man for the firm said last night that it was not responsible for the fault which caused the system to crash yesterday.

“Affected schools can use mobile phones or fax lines”

UNRESPONSIVE: Highland schools were affected by the system glitch