We were having a read through the details of the
Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Market study into Island ferry services when we noticed something very important that it was easy to miss – the OFT deleted emails sent by the public, without reading them.
The OFT are saying that any emails sent to their suggested email address ([email protected]), between 27 February 2009 and 10 March 2009 were “deleted by mistake and cannot recover(ed).”
“A technical malfunction”
They put this down to a “technical malfunction.”
Given the request for email comments was first published on 27 February and that the cut off date for responses was 27 March, the email responses for nearly half of the period open to public were deleted.
Anyone who moved reasonably early to pass their email comments to the OFT on the ferries will not have had their responses considered.
We have contacted the OFT to find out how many emails were lost and we are waiting to speak to them.
UPDATE: The OFT have been back in touch and tell us that they estimate the number of missing emails was between 10-15 , and they’ve now updated page to reflect this.
MP Andrew Turner responds
VentnorBlog called MP Andrew Turner about this and he said, “I’m astounded to hear this.
“The consultation opened on 27 February, when the OFT actively invited email comments, and it seems that a lot of people will have responded quickly.
“I know that my office used that email address to forward emails from the public that we received. It’s an important failure and I’ll be raising it when I see them.”
How can emails be deleted?
To delete emails these days, when any organisation of size have backups and archiving procedures, is shocking and hard to understand.
Report findings in question?
As email responses of some Islanders were not considered, it must bring into question the findings of the report, as it’s possible that the views of the people effected by the investigations haven’t had their comments taken into account.
The OFT suggestion? “In the event that you emailed this email address between these dates, please feel free to resend your emails and we will consider them in connection with our consultation exercise.”
Misreporting
This news comes on top of the IW Council’s Policy Commission for business and infrastructure misreporting an Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce survey of small Island businesses to the OFT.
Where as the Chamber report found that 81% of small companies thought the cost of cross-Solent travel had an adverse effect on business, the Commission reported to the OFT that 81% didn’t think it had an effect.
Did you email in?
If you sent an email to the OFT in the period that they deleted the mail, please get in touch with us to we can get a rough idea of the numbers.
