Capita has come under fire from the Lib Dems after residents were hit by IT problems when seeking information on postal and proxy voting.

The party said it had been “inundated” with calls from concerned residents who had been experiencing problems and claimed it was another example of the One Barnet Capita outsourcing contract “failing to deliver”.

An investigation by the Liberal Democrats showed many pages on the council’s website were not working properly, with the menus taking voters to the wrong pages or pages that did not exist.

It comes after deselected Tory councillor Sury Khatri claimed Barnet residents were being “fleeced” by the Capita contract in a speech to the Audit Committee last week.

The Lib Dems also warned of a major risk to the council from a potential Capita collapse after the outsourcing firm posted a pre-tax loss of more than £500 million.

Mill Hill Lib Dem Candidate Roger Tichborne said: “It is scandalous that Capita and Barnet Council cannot get their website working for voters in the fortnight before an election.

“It appears that they’ve made changes and not even bothered to test them. When I tried to access the ‘postal votes’ page from the useful forms page I was sent to the results page for the 2017 general election.

“When I tried the ‘proxy votes’ page, I got ‘page not found’. It is simply unacceptable and exemplifies the slapdash approach to the public.”

However, Barnet Council denied there was an issue with the link.

However, Barnet Council denied there was an issue with a link.

A council spokesman said: “The website pages displaying information on applying for postal and proxy vote are working and there have been no problem with these.

“The issue identified was as a result of an old link directing to the elections pages and this has been refreshed. This has nothing to do with services delivered by the Capita contract.

“People wishing to apply for a postal or proxy vote have been able to do so. Approximately 50,000 people in Barnet applied for a postal vote ahead of the April 18 deadline. Anyone wishing to apply for a proxy vote can do so up until April 25.”