Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent progress has been made on the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency's plan to recruit 300 new driving examiners; and how many and what proportion of the examiners recruited as at July 2021 are actively conducting practical driving tests on a full-time basis as at 20 September 2021.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has an ongoing campaign to increase the number of examiners by recruiting around 300 driving examiners between 1 April 2021 and June 2022. As at 21 September 2021, 74 examiners have been recruited.

97% of examiners, that were recruited as at July 2021, were actively conducting practical driving tests on a full-time basis as at 20 September 2021.

As a result of the DVSA’s first recruitment campaign, there are 107 people either attending, or booked to attend, their training between now and January 2022. As a result of the second recruitment campaign, there are 62 people who have passed the selection process; these candidates will be notified week commencing 27 September 2021.

To support the recruitment campaign, the agency is also exploring options to temporarily contract in experienced driving assessors from other road safety organisations to become driving examiners.

The DVSA has put a number of measures in place to increase practical driving tests and reduce waiting times. These include offering a national recovery allowance 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 and weekends).