Out-of-Hours & Emergency Call-Out Terms

1.1 Standard Hours

Arcscribe's standard operating hours are 10:30 to 17:00 UK time, Monday to Friday, excluding bank and public holidays in England and Wales. All support, project work, and general enquiries are handled within these hours as standard, and no call-out or out-of-hours charge applies to work carried out during them.

1.2 What Counts as Out-of-Hours

Any period falling outside the hours in clause 1.1 is treated as out-of-hours. This includes:

• • Any time before 10:30 or after 17:00 on a working day.
• • Saturdays, Sundays, and bank or public holidays in England and Wales.
• • Any period Arcscribe has notified the Client of as a planned closure.

1.3 Application of These Terms

Support requested, commenced, or carried out during an out-of-hours period is subject to these terms, including where the underlying issue was first reported during standard hours. Where work begins during standard hours and continues past 17:00 at the Client's request, the out-of-hours rate in clause 3.3 applies to the time worked after 17:00, but the call-out fee in clause 3.1 does not.

2.1 Qualifying Incidents

Only the following qualify for emergency on-call support:

• • Total downtime: A live website or application is entirely unreachable or non-functional for all users.
• • Complete loss of critical infrastructure: Failure of production hosting, database, DNS, or mail routing that halts the Client's ability to operate.
• • Severe security breach or active cyber attack: A confirmed or strongly suspected compromise, active intrusion, ransomware event, or attack in progress against a system managed by Arcscribe.

2.2 Non-Qualifying Requests

The following do not constitute a Critical Emergency and will be scheduled into standard operating hours:

• • Content updates, copy changes, or image and media swaps.
• • Routine bug fixes, including visual defects and non-blocking functional faults.
• • CMS, portal, or email password resets and account access requests.
• • Aesthetic or design changes of any kind.
• • General technical enquiries, advice, training, or "how do I" questions.
• • New feature requests, quotes, invoicing queries, and commercial discussions.
• • Issues affecting only a staging, preview, or development environment.
• • Degraded performance or partial faults that do not prevent the site or application from being used.

Anything not expressly listed in clause 2.1 is treated as non-critical.

2.3 Determination

Whether an incident is a Critical Emergency is determined by the attending Arcscribe engineer, acting reasonably, on the basis of the information available at the time of the call. That determination is made before chargeable work begins wherever possible.

3.1 Call-Out Fee

A minimum call-out fee of £150 excluding VAT (£180 including VAT at the current rate of 20%) applies to every out-of-hours call-out. The fee is charged per incident and becomes payable as soon as the attending engineer begins investigation.

3.2 What the Call-Out Fee Includes

The call-out fee covers the initial investigation and diagnosis of the incident, together with up to the first hour of work. Chargeable time is measured from the point the engineer begins investigating, not from the time of the call.

The call-out fee is a minimum charge and is not reduced or refunded where the incident is resolved in less than one hour, where no fault is found, or where the cause is found to lie with a third party outside Arcscribe's control. The sole exception is the waiver in clause 4.1.

3.3 Hourly Rate After the First Hour

Work continuing beyond the first hour is charged at £125 per hour excluding VAT (£150 per hour including VAT at the current rate of 20%), for each subsequent hour or part hour begun.

3.4 Expenses

Where resolving an incident requires third-party costs, such as emergency infrastructure provisioning, additional licensing, or specialist tooling, these are charged at cost and agreed with the Client in advance wherever practicable.

3.5 Invoicing and Payment Terms

Out-of-hours work is invoiced separately from any project or retainer invoice, normally within five working days of the incident closing. The invoice sets out the time attended, the work carried out, and the charges applied.

Out-of-hours invoices are payable within 7 days of the invoice date. Invoices not paid within 7 days may incur a late fee plus statutory interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate, pursuant to the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

4.1 Arcscribe Infrastructure Faults and Errors

Where investigation establishes that the incident was caused by a failure of Arcscribe's own managed hosting infrastructure, or by a direct error on Arcscribe's part such as a faulty deployment or misconfiguration made by Arcscribe, the call-out fee and all associated out-of-hours charges are waived in full.

If an invoice has already been raised when the cause is established, it will be credited in full. Arcscribe will confirm the outcome of the investigation in writing.

4.2 Faults Outside Arcscribe's Control

The waiver in clause 4.1 does not apply, and charges stand in full, where the incident arises from:

• • Changes, deployments, or configuration made by the Client or by a third party acting for the Client.
• • Failure of hosting, domain, DNS, or other services held in the Client's own name or with the Client's own providers.
• • Lapsed domain registrations, expired certificates, or unpaid third-party services.
• • Outages at upstream providers, payment gateways, or other third-party platforms.
• • Compromise arising from credentials held or shared by the Client.

4.3 SLA and Retainer Clients

Clients holding a bespoke Service Level Agreement, support contract, or retainer with Arcscribe are billed in accordance with that individual agreement rather than these default terms. Where an individual agreement conflicts with this page, that agreement prevails to the extent of the conflict. Clients unsure whether their agreement covers out-of-hours support should confirm the position with Arcscribe during standard hours, before an emergency arises.

5.1 Acceptance by Use of the Emergency Line

Callers to the out-of-hours emergency support line hear an automated message stating that out-of-hours charges apply and directing them to this page. By choosing to remain on the line after that message and proceeding with a request for assistance, the caller acknowledges these terms and accepts the charges set out in clause 3 on behalf of the Client. No further signature, written confirmation, or purchase order is required for those charges to become payable.

5.2 Authority of the Caller

Any person using the emergency line warrants that they are authorised to commit the Client to the charges set out in these terms. Callers who are not authorised to incur expenditure on the Client's behalf should end the call and contact Arcscribe during standard operating hours.

5.3 Right to Refuse or Defer

Arcscribe reserves the right to refuse out-of-hours work, or to defer it to the next working day, where the attending engineer judges that the issue is not a Critical Emergency as defined in clause 2. Where Arcscribe declines a request and carries out no investigative or remedial work, no call-out fee is charged.

5.4 No Guarantee of Resolution

Out-of-hours attendance is provided on a reasonable endeavours basis. Arcscribe does not warrant that any incident will be resolved within a given time, and charges are made for time attended and work carried out rather than for a guaranteed outcome. Nothing in these terms creates a service level commitment in the absence of a signed Service Level Agreement.

6.1 Relationship to the Terms of Service

These terms supplement Arcscribe's Terms of Service, which continue to apply in full, including the limitations of liability set out there. Where the Terms of Service and this page conflict on a matter of out-of-hours support, this page prevails.

6.2 Changes to These Terms

Arcscribe may update these terms from time to time. The version that applies to any given call-out is the version published on this page at the time the call is made.

6.3 Disputes

Queries about an out-of-hours invoice should be raised in writing within 14 days of the invoice date. Arcscribe will review the attendance record and respond in writing.