Why are we waiting so long for tests?

The MSA has called for action to end a ‘postcode lottery’ over driving test waiting times as the DVSA struggles to cope with increased demand for L-tests.

As ADIs – and their pupils – are finding out, waiting times for tests, which have been at or around the DVSA target figure of six weeks since the start of the recession in 2008, have been creeping up inexorably around Great Britain in recent months. Many ADIs are grumbling that their local DTC is now struggling to offer driving tests within 10 weeks, in some parts of the country the situation is far worse.

Large cities such as Norwich and Nottingham are not taking any test bookings at all at the moment: the DVSA’s call centre is suggesting that when test slots come available, they will be for 2016! While the MSA understands rising waiting times are the inevitable consequence of an improving economy, the disparity between sometimes neighbouring test centres has to be tackled immediately.

I believe this situation is intolerable how can any ADIs be expected to run a business when they have no reasonable idea what the waiting time is going to be, and in the centres mentioned there are no dates available at all?

What is particularly galling for some ADIs are the enormous regional variations in waiting test times. We have had long lead times before, but in all my years involved with driver trainingI have never seen variations across centres like those we are currently experiencing.

In comparably sized English cities the waits vary from seven weeks in Canterbury and eight in Lancaster to 11 in St Albans and 13 in Cambridge. Perhaps somewhat embarrassingly for the DVSA, its former home city of Nottingham is one of the worst areas, with no dates available, the same as Norwich. In CO2 8HF (Colchester) a pupil has to wait eight weeks for a test; in NR7 0WE (Norwich), no dates are currently available.

It is also important to remember the devastating affects of these long waits on pupils who fail their tests. I have always believed there should be a fast track system for those who fail, say, on only one serious error. Failing a test today for one mistake and then being required to wait until next year for a retake is unacceptable.

DVSA is keen to ensure that ADIs are fit and proper people; I don’t think the service being
offered by the agency is currently fit for purpose or at a proper level for a monopoly service provider. The MSA has drawn up a petition on the UK Parliament Petitions website to try to raise the profile of this issue. In it we call for the DVSA to take action to standardise the time pupils have to wait to book an L-test as much as possible.

It states: Waiting times for driving test appointments to be equal across Great Britain. It adds: The current situation where, in some parts of GB, the waiting times for driving tests is just six weeks, while in other places, such as Norwich, no driving test appointments are available until 2016, is unacceptable. It is making it impossible for learner drivers to take training in a planned manner.

The disparities in England are matched in Scotland and Wales. In Wales the wait at Newport (Gwent) is seven weeks while at Pwllheli, no test slots are available. In Scotland, the waiting time at Inverness for a test is eight weeks, while half an hour away in Alness there are no dates available. No dates are available in Fort William, Oban, Isle of Mull, Mallaig, Inveraray, Kyle of Lochalsh, Isle of Skye, Callander or Ballachulish, either.

So please back the petition. While the official line coming from the DVSA is that the longer waiting times are a natural consequence of the increase in pupils coming forward for test, and that an examiner recruitment programme will ease some of the burden, the MSA believes the problem cannot simply be put down to increased demand. Rather, we believe new examiner contracts have significantly reduced the DVSA’s flexibility and ability to respond to rising demand in different areas.

The new contracts were introduced by the Coalition Government and were initially unpopular with examiners, but while test numbers were decreasing post-recession they had little impact on waiting times. However, with a rise in demand, the chickens have come home to roost.

Under the old contracts, when localised spikes in demand occurred, examiners had a financial inducement to travel around the country and tackle the backlog at the behest of the DSA, through the way they were paid allowances for travel, overnight accommodation and subsistence. A shrewd examiner happy to stay in a cheap B n B could clear an extra £200+ a week, tax free, through their expenses, as they were paid set figures to cover their living costs.

Today, the new contracts simply reimburse them for legitimate expenses, meaning there is no financial incentive to work away from home for a week; their only ‘reward’ is the knowledge that they are helping the DVSA out of a hole.

I do not wish to make examiners sound mercenary, as I do not believe they are, but these new contracts mean there is little to reward examiners who volunteer to work away from home at other DTCs to help ease test backlogs.

In the pre-2010 days, if there was pressure on tests in Norwich as there is now, the DSA would have parachuted in two-three extra examiners to tackle the backlog. They would receive a tax-free sum on top of their standard salary, with the money used to cover living expenses. Examiners could comfortably pocket £200+ as a ‘reward’ for spending a week away from home and family.

Today, however, that same examiner would be paid no more than if he or she stayed at home and conducted tests from the usual centre. Why should they up-sticks and relocate for a week, just to help the DVSA? You cannot blame them for refusing to take on these extra tests away from home.

I recall one former ADI-turned examiner who earned himself a hefty pay rise through taking on tests hundreds of miles from his home. He regularly flew into London and did 10 days’ examining there and it paid off handsomely. He was away from his home and partner but the money earned compensated for that. One of the advantages of the new civil service contracts was supposed to be an extra two tests per examiner per week, but that has still not been agreed and so the pressure on the system continues to build.

Lesley Young, chief driving examiner, has told the MSA before that the problem with an increase in test demand is you can’t just employ a new examiner: they need training, which takes time. We accept that. However previously, when pinch points occurred in the system, the then DSA had enough flexibility to relieve the pressure where it was at its most acute. That facility is no longer there.

Action is needed to provide incentives to examiners to return to the old ways of moving to new locations for short periods of time to tackle long waiting lists.