Driving Licences: Applications

(asked on 8th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average time taken is to process a paper application for a driving licence, for each of the last 12 months for which data is available.


Answered by
Trudy Harrison Portrait
Trudy Harrison
This question was answered on 16th February 2022

The number of paper driving licence applications awaiting processing on a specific date in each of the last 12 months is shown in the table below.

Date

Total

1 Mar 2021

113,632

1 Apr 2021

171,993

1 May 2021

306,690

1 Jun 2021

448,874

1 Jul 2021

608,934

1 Aug 2021

628,345

1 Sept 2021

675,775

1 Oct 2021

637,411

1 Nov 2021

549,758

1 Dec 2021

446,888

4 Jan 2022

392,821

1 Feb 2022

384,841

The average number of days taken to process a paper application for a driving licence in each of the last 12 months is shown in the table below.

Date

Average working days

Feb 2021

5.2

March 2021

8.6

April 2021

12.9

May 2021

18.1

June 2021

23.9

July 2021

32.1

August 2021

34.8

Sept 2021

33.3

Oct 2021

33.9

Nov 2021

30

Dec 2021

28.9

Jan 2022

28

The number of full-time equivalent staff working for the DVLA in each of the last ten years is shown in the table below.

Date

Full-Time Equivalent

31 March 2013

5,612.58

31 March 2014

4,985.10

31 March 2015

4,918.94

31 March 2016

5,429.94

31 March 2017

5,351.16

31 March 2018

5,195.51

31 March 2019

5,336.04

31 March 2020

5,499.17

31 March 2021

5,467.87

31 January 2022

5,461.25

To help reduce waiting times for paper applications, the DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited more staff, increased overtime working and has secured extra office space in Swansea and Birmingham. The DVLA has reconfigured its accommodation to safely maximise the number of staff on site and is working hard to process paper applications as quickly as possible.

Together with the ending of industrial action, these measures are having a positive impact.

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