Former MP wannabe is victim of Oxford council's IT mix-up

Chaka Artwell’s attempts to address Oxford city councillors were thwarted twice when his emails were accidentally redirected to an unmonitored inbox.

The council has apologised and said the issue had been fixed.

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But Mr Artwell, who ran unsuccessfully as an Independent parliamentary candidate for Oxford East at the 2019 General Election, claimed he had been the victim of a “serious and fundamental breach” of democracy.

Oxford Town Hall, where the city council is headquartered (Image: Ed Nix)

He said: “This amounts to a serious breach of England’s democratic form of local governance, which ought to concern all of Oxford’s council taxpayers and Oxford Mail readers.

“Addressing Oxford’s full council is not a privilege as the chief executive officer appears to believe.

“Addressing the elected councillors and executive officers is a democratic right bestowed to us today by England’s native Anglo-Saxon heritage people, who sacrificed greatly for us to have and use this democratic right to address those who make local policies which affects all our lives.”

Mr Artwell wanted to ask questions at full council meetings in July and October.

But on both occasions, he was told by the democratic services staff they had not received his questions by email.

This meant he was unable to speak at either meeting.

Emails sent by Mr Artwell were redirected to an unmonitored inbox (Image: Torsten Dettlaff/Pexels)

After he complained, the council investigated the issue and found his emails had been redirected to an unmonitored inbox which staff were unaware of.

A council spokesman said no other questions had been received by the inbox.

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But Mr Artwell has questioned whether the mistake has led to a lack of critical speakers at council meetings.

He said: “I was at a loss to explain the absence of speakers concerned with the East Oxford road block and anti-car policies addressing Oxford’s full council meetings.

“Could Oxford City Council’s technical glitch be responsible for the absence of critical speakers at full council meetings?”

In an email to Mr Artwell, Jonathan Malton, the council’s committee and member services manager, apologised for the error.

He said: “These were automatically redirected to an unmonitored inbox that committee and member services were unaware of…

“This has now been rectified, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

It is not the first time the council has faced scrutiny for technology fails.

In October, officials were left red-faced after sending 5,000 people an email wrongly telling them their council tax discount had been refused.

The authority has also been criticised for its online housing management system, which suffered issues with data migration after it went live in 2021.

Councillor Chris Smowton said it had been an “IT disaster” that had cost the taxpayer more than £1 million in overspend on the project.

The council said significant improvements had since been made to the system.