Driving Tests: Waiting Lists

(asked on 12th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of drivers that are waiting to take a practical driving test as quickly as possible.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 19th April 2021

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has a number of measures in place to increase the availability of practical driving tests when it is safe for them to resume. These include offering overtime and annual leave buy back to examiners, asking all those qualified to conduct tests, but who do not do so as part of their current day job, to return to conducting tests, and conducting out of hours testing (such as on public holidays). The DVSA has also started a recruitment campaign to increase the number of examiners. The aim is to increase testing capacity and reduce the backlog as quickly as possible, whilst maintaining a COVID-secure service for customers and examiners.

There are no current plans to reimburse learners drivers, given that they will have already received the service for which they paid.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) pays its contractor, Pearson, per theory test delivered. If candidates were exempted from having to pay for a retake then the DVSA and in turn other fee payers would incur these costs. This would be unfair to fee payers who would not benefit from the arrangement. In addition, applications for a re-test would need to be validated and systems amended to remove the requirement for payment in these cases. The DVSA’s focus should rightly be on developing solutions to address the backlog of practical driving tests that has arisen as a result of the pandemic.

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