Office working ‘the one thing that driving examiners can’t do’, says minister
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Forcing Government staff to work from their offices will not cut driving test waiting times, a transport minister has said. Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill told peers that working from an office is “the one thing that driving examiners can’t do”, after Conservative peer Lord Hannan of Kingsclere accused the Government of a “state failure” since Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns began in 2020.
Conservative peer Lord Young of Cookham had earlier complained that “middlemen are hoovering up slots on the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) website and then charging learner drivers a premium to access them” by selling them on. He asked the minister on Monday: “Why doesn’t the Government just get on with this and ban this racket?”.
Lord Hendy said the Government would make changes at a pace “so that we don’t inadvertently make it more difficult for legitimate people looking for tests to book them”. He told peers that “tougher terms and conditions” for test bookings came in on January 6, and added the Government is recruiting 450 extra driving examiners in a bid to reduce waiting times from almost 21 weeks to seven by the end of December this year.
This is on top of the existing 1,456 full-time equivalent posts, and the first tranche of new recruits is “about to start doing driving tests”. Conservative former transport secretary Lord Grayling asked: “Why is it that any driving test can be booked anywhere except the official DVSA website and why can he not just sort that?”.
