Updating the service unavailable pages

Posted on: 6 October 2021 Tags: service unavailable error pages

We updated the service unavailable pages used when:

there’s a problem with the service - this is known as a 500 page or internal server error page
the service is offline for planned maintenance - this is known as a 503 page or a shutter page

We’d already made some improvements to the planned maintenance page and wanted to have a consistent approach.

How it works

The pages do not include any elements which require the service to be available. This means that they do not include:

This page includes:

the page title “Sorry, there’s a problem with the service – Manage teacher training applications – GOV.UK”
the heading “Sorry, there’s a problem with the service”
content telling the user to try again later and that any information they’ve entered has not been saved
an email address for the user to contact us

This page includes:

the page title “Sorry, the service is unavailable – Manage teacher training applications – GOV.UK”
the heading “Sorry, the service is unavailable”
content telling the user when the service will be available if we know it, for example “You’ll be able to use the service from 3pm on Monday 11 October 2021.”
content telling the user to try again later if we do not know when the service will be available - this should not usually be the case for planned maintenance
content saying that any information the user has entered has not been saved
an email address for the user to contact us