The ability of Britain’s quangos to sugarcoat their rather unflattering performance figures will never fail to amaze Mr S. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority (DVSA) is just the latest example. The organisation’s chair and chief executive have both issued glowing reports of the company’s ‘progress’ thus far, using an exciting range of buzzwords to distract from the fact that wait times for driving tests have risen to, er, a staggering 22 weeks. Talk about a car crash, eh?
The average waiting time for a practical car driving test is 22 weeks across the UK, as of the end of May this year. The figures vary across the country – but not by much. In Wales, the wait is 19 weeks, while in Scotland learners are having to wait 21. England is worse still, with waits at 22.8 weeks on average – and in much of London, from Barking to Tottenham to Uxbridge, waits are a whopping 24 weeks, or approximately six months. Steerpike would remind readers that the DVSA’s current target is to reduce the national average waiting time for a test to just seven weeks by the end of the year. Good luck, as they say, with that.
Yet the DVSA’s chair doesn’t seem to quite appreciate the scale of the problem. In a statement titled ‘Chair’s Introduction’, Nick Bitel lauded the ‘progress we have made’ and praised his staff for their contributions, which he describes as ‘invaluable in maintaining our essential services’. He goes on to add, rather bizarrely, that: ‘I’m also particularly proud of our environmental achievements, having reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent from our 2017-18 baseline’. Priorities, priorities…
Despite the DVSA’s own report stating that the average test times for car practical driving exams has increased from 16.1 weeks at the end of March 2024 to 21.9 weeks at the end of March this year, the DVSA’s chief executive Loveday Ryder – who received a pay uplift and a £27,000 pension benefit boost last year – instead applauded ‘colleague wellbeing’. This was ‘reflected in the launch of our comprehensive mental health strategy’, she gushed, which was much needed due to ‘pressures our colleagues have faced while working to…meet customer expectations’. Mr S would point out that seeing test waiting times elongate is hardly meeting expectations…
The TaxPayers’ Alliance’s head of campaigns, Elliot Keck, insisted in a social media post: ‘It’s time to shut the DVSA down and hand driving tests to the private sector.’ Certainly it’s hard to see how things could be driven any more off-road…
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