National ADI associations are receiving daily emails from members who are frustrated with the current state of affairs regarding test bookings and waiting times.

At the same time, MPs are also receiving multiple complaints about the state of the druvung test waiting times.

The increasingly long waiting times are well-documented with the traditional and social media awash with articles and comments from a disgruntled public.

An out dated system and failing plans to get a grip of the problem has led the Transport Secretary Hiedi Alexander to make a statement to Parliament outline yet another plan of action

In light of the very worrying situation, NASP has written to the CEO of DVSA to express concerns.

This, in turn, has now been copied to the Minister, the Chair of the Transport Select Committee and others.

The content of the letter follows below.

 

 

Call for action

Dear Loveday

Reflecting the industry’s concern at continuing driving test waiting time issues

In October 2021 you wrote to ADIs about the issue of test waiting times, summarising various actions being taken to tackle the issues, including battling the bots and consulting on a range of regulatory measures aimed at reducing the number of candidates booking a test who are not ready, designed to deliver greater flexibility to provide more tests. Test waiting
times stood at 15 weeks at that time.

Fast forward more than three years later, and the waiting times figures quoted by the agency in March stood at 21.3 weeks*. Not only are we more than 3 years on from the start of the waiting times issues, and waiting times have increased by nearly 7 weeks since then, we are also four months into a 7 Point Plan designed to tackle testing issues – and waiting times increased again since the inception of the plan in December. We’re also aware waiting times quoted are based on a 26-week forward-booking window, the true extent of waiting times we would query based on a longer-term window.

NASP is extremely concerned at the lack of real progress in driving down test waiting times, and the fact we seem to be in a Groundhog Day scenario of discussing the same symptoms over and over, with the alleged solutions not having the impact expected. Whilst we acknowledge there have been demonstrable attempts to manage the symptoms, the overall
problem persists.

The 7-Point Plan does not, thus far, appear to have had a significant impact, and with 25% of the plan seeming to be plans to consult on plans (versus immediate actions), industry confidence in the plan is questionable. A national survey launched at the end of last month (asking trainers for their views on DVSA’s efforts to manage the test delivery crisis overall, and their thoughts on the likely impact of the 7 Point Plan) is not a comforting read for DVSA. It prompted a large number of responses within hours of being published – reflecting the frustration of members. We will share the survey report with you shortly (for comment, before sharing more widely with the industry). The feedback gives a sense that actions to tackle the test supply problem are perceived not to be radical or expedient enough – and that perhaps there is too much belief in the power of what have proved to be slower burn activities. Let us qualify what we mean by that focusing on some of the strategies and tactics deployed to date:

Examiner recruitment and retention

Without rehashing all the finer details of Examiner recruitment and retention, the issues are manifest in the stats – a target of 450 new Examiners over two national campaigns, actual recruitment of 300 new Examiners (the last update NASP was given), meaning target recruitment is being missed by a third, issues with the attrition of new recruits even in the training process, recruitment gains offset against existing Examiner attrition with the agency losing up to more than 10% of its Examiner workforce a year.

Whilst measures are being taken to tackle the issues, including expediting the trainingprocess to aid new recruit retention, and in turn expedite deployment (a key recommendation Diamond Advanced Motorists made to the agency nearly 4 years ago, when we were asked by the DVSA look at supporting the training process for Examiners), the key issues of pay, contracts and working conditions clearly continue to have an impact
on recruitment and retention.

A key question posed at the Transport Committee hearing in December 2024 was, if pay was an issue in terms of job attraction and existing employee retention, what could be done about it? We’re aware of the challenges of shifting roles within Civil Service pay grades and bands, but what progress has been made on this actual point? The cost of not taking these
steps is surely more than the increased cost of increasing pay? And what other measures are being taken/can be taken to aid retention and recruitment? At the committee hearing PCS outlined various continuing issues with terms and conditions workloads on Examiner pressure – what progress has been made there, as clearly these factors have their impact on recruitment and retention in turn?

Ready to Pass campaign

Whilst NASP respects the work that has gone into this campaign, and the benefit such educational approaches may have in changing consumer behaviour in the longer term, we cannot see that the Ready to Pass is having a tangible enough impact on its audiences to result in the quicker wins needed now to limit pupils leaping too soon to take a test. There is clearly a longer-term benefit to the campaign (and in that regard we support it) but to include it in the 7 Point Plan as a measure of dealing with the current crisis is not compelling. The reach of the campaign has been limited in real terms as the channels in which DVSA really needs to be to connect with core audiences of Cat B test decision-makers (and their influencers) are not ones which DVSA are as visible as one would expect, given the agency’s core remit and core audience profile. We would urge DVSA, and wider Government decision-makers, especially ‘colleague’ organisations like DVLA (who arguably have the biggest penetration into the core audience, and who are able to target this audience at the earliest stage and mould behaviour) look at what more can be done to disseminate messages of this nature more widely and more rapidly within these audiences. Stickers in ADI cars are not the answer, and frankly look like sticking plasters on the wider issue of communications seemingly not reaching far enough, quick enough.

Returning Warrant Card Holders to the frontline

The decision to return over 230 Warrant Cardholders to the frontline of testing was hailed by the agency as a success, resulting in over 150,000 new test slots being created. A significant number of those redeployed to testing between October 2023 and April 2024 have now returned to their day jobs. If this single measure had such a significant impact, the industry questions why this imitative was not sustained for a longer period? And as numbers have crept again, is this not an option to explore again?

Booking Systems and Accessibility

NASP is concerned that, as the new Driver Services Platform has been highlighted as a key solution in DVSA’s battle against the bots, increasing capacity and accessibility in test bookings in general, and developing the agency’s ability to manage test delivery (and the delivery of its wider services) overall, it has taken so long for the project to even get off the starter blocks of the scoping stage. This project has been held up as an operational and strategic necessity for the agency since before COVID, and the lack of progress in this area continues to hamper service delivery. What actions are being undertaken to expedite it now, and what confidence can the industry be given that this is a project that will deliver significant improvement in a meaningful timeline?

ADI Qualification and quality assurance

Whilst Category B test supply continues to be a huge concern for all stakeholders, access tqualifying tests such as Parts 2 and 3, and competency assessments (such as the Standards Checks) have clearly also been a significant issue throughout the last few yearsAgain, we won’t rehash all the issues here of Part 2 and Part 3 test supply (as efforts arbeing made to finally get on top of those now). However, with Standards Checks still not having been restarted, and thousands of ADI licence holders not having had any form of competency assessment for over 7 or 8 years, this remains an area of concern.The questions we are being asked here, by the wider profession, are when will DVSA geback to a normal level of Standards Checks, what plans has the agency got to develop and sustain a good quality ADI Performance Management process in the future and are DVSA actually best placed to deliver the ADI qualifying process and the quality assurance of trainers into the future  – or should the agency divest itself of this responsibility? Frankly, NASP would welcome a discussion of this nature and believes this should be a focus of the agency in respect of ADI development, not producing ADI Coaching guides, tinkering with parts of the qualification process and having clandestine meetings with one ADI training entity to discuss the development of their single solution ADI training products as a possible interim solution to improve the PDI and ADI development.  We need, as an industry, to have a much fuller and franker discussion as to where ADI training and performance management needs to go and work towards that goal in a holistic and sustainable manner together, rather
than side bet and silo projects. And the same approach should apply to Rider Trainer development.

Other concerning symptoms of the test supply blight

Alongside the ‘headline’ issues we highlight above, we note the development of other
symptoms the overall test backlog issue has either created or exacerbated. Those include:

• The number of Non-PRN tests increasing, which in turn have a higher failure rate
than PRN related tests

• The rise in cheating on tests

• The rise in FTAs (with the changes to the cancellation period being implemented only
yesterday, we’ll wait and see what the real terms impact is on FTAs)

• The rise of complaints against ADIs

• The increasing burden on ADIs in terms of time spent chasing down test slots and
juggling pupils in this era of high demand and limited supply

• The continuing black market of test supply at vastly inflated prices

We respect that the agency has admitted itself this is not where they want to be, and thatest availability in the first quarter of 2025 is worse than 2024 levels, with over a third of tescentres in the UK having waiting times of 24 weeks or more in this period. We equallrespect what work has been done to try and tackle the issues. However, at the industrsteering group and the largest representative body in the profession, we cannot stand band not flag our severe concern that the overall issue of test waiting times continues seemingly unabated and with little tangible impact from the measures the agency claims will have such an impact. Therefore, we would appreciate a response soonest to the key concerns, questions and suggestions outlined in this letter.

Stakeholder Relations at this time

In writing to you at this time, we would be remiss in not communicating our wider concerns over our interaction with DVSA of late.  We attended the first of the Car Driver Forum’s in March. A sound idea, in principle, for DVSA to bring stakeholders together to discuss issues which impact all stakeholders and to derive ideas for solutions to those issues from this group – as well as utilise it as a sounding board more generally. However, on discovering a plan to subsume the next NASP DVSA meeting into a face-to-face meeting of the Car Driver Forum, NASP was left reflecting on their position as a stakeholder. We have now resolved the issue of the June meeting being wholly overtaken by the Forum meeting by offering to hold a shorter meeting for NASP earlier in the AM (meaning the Car Forum can take place separately on the same day). However, the handling of this left us with a sense of unease as to whether there is a plan to subsume NASP into this wider group, and do away with our regular interfaces with DVSA as a single, significant stakeholder.

Therefore, we would take this opportunity to highlight why we, and our memberships, feel closed meetings with NASP are still important, and should continue to operate in addition to this wider stakeholder group. NASP is a representative group of the main national associations in the driver and training profession – the trade bodies and quasi-unions of the space. We represent members on a number of key issues for driver and rider trainers – some of which concern the behaviour of franchises towards our members who are franchisees, some of which do not necessarily concern the franchises at all, and some of which also focus more keenly on the needs of the independent, non-franchised trainer, so holding meetings away from those franchises has a value and importance.  We also use these meetings to raise issues, seek updates and discuss solutions related to training, testing and trainer development in other vehicle and licence classes, such as motorbike, HGV, bus and coach etc, (though we often get a response from DVSA there are other forums for that, which you don’t always involve us in, even though we represent members across the spectrum of training and testing, and some of us directly deliver training
and testing in those wider areas). For those reasons we would prefer our meetings not to be subsumed into the wider Car Driver Forum.  We would also highlight our recent feedback on the issue of the Action Log used in NASP meetings being less about what we’ve asked DVSA to follow up on the industry’s behalf (and more about what the agency wants to tell us it’s done) and, additionally, a perceptible lack of transparency and clarity on how the agency works with third parties, as other issues which have led to concern about the state of the relationship between the two parties.

In closing, we are left with the feeling that DVSA has begun to treat NASP, and the individual bodies of which it is composed, in a dismissive manner, evocative of us being perceived as a less than significant and important stakeholder. May we remind you, for the reasons detailed above – and due to the much larger volume of trainers we represent than the rest of the other stakeholders in the Car Driver Forum combined – we are still a significant stakeholder and are (and have been) a powerful ally of DVSA. We are now left questioning what should be an important and valuable relationship for both parties, and whether we are getting out of it what we put in.

We look forward to your response, and in the continuing spirit of NASP wanting to work together to resolve issues, we are, of course, happy to discuss this matter further.

Yours Sincerely
The National Associations Strategic Partnership

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*End of February figures for average waiting times nationally, provided by DVSA Press Office).