ARE THE DVsA MORALLY CORRUPT

Are the DvSA morally bankrupt?

Are the DVsA practices corrupt?

An open letter

Dear MPs the Honourable Huw Merryman and Sally-Ann Hart and the CEO DVsA Loveday Ryder

I am the founder of the local Bexhill and Hastings ADI (Approved Driving Instructor) group called HABIT (Hastings and Bexhill Instructor Team) and I am writing to you on behalf of our 52 members and all their 1,000+ pupils, who are all your constituents, and voters. We are deeply concerned, and in many cases, severely depressed about the state of our local Driving Test Centre (Dtc) in Ore.

We have gone from having a compliment at Hastings Ore Dtc of up to 6 full-time examiners plus a manager to just the ONE full time examiner on cars, who is currently on sick leave following an operation, plus 2 Part-Time examiners just about managing a full week between them, and one ‘fill in’ examiner who occasionally helps out from Eastbourne. Our current manager has to cover 2 separate Dtcs, so being only human is only here part time.

Hastings Ore Dtc is closed for this morning with NO driving tests at all.

At the point of me writing this I have been advised Hastings Ore Dtc is closed for this morning with NO driving tests at all. How in the name of heaven have you, as representatives of the local community allowed this dire situation to occur? Mr Merriman, as the recent Chair of the Parliamentary Transport Committee should be fully aware of the current state of affairs as this has been developing for some time and has been sent many messages on the subject from many areas of the country.

Your constituents are unable to book driving tests for the remainder of 2023 with nothing currently available within 2024 at present. The dvsa have certainly been aware of the situation within their organisation for a very long time, even if only following the blogs on this site, never mind the feedback from their own employees on the front line – the examiners. This is not just a local issue but a nationwide one!! The waiting list is at least six times as long as the agency is required to meet and has promised to attain several times in the past.

Tens of Millions of pounds, all our money, have been poured into modernising and updating the DVsA

Tens of Millions of pounds have been poured into modernising and updating the DVsA over the decades of its existence and yet it was easier to book, or exchange tests 40 years ago when I first qualified. We used pen, paper and the postman to send and receive bookings via a clerk in an office with a diary. How can this be right? Currently the booking system is computerised, and everything is done on line and automated, yet the DVsA appear to have very little – if any, control on who runs their system. Various ‘bots’ can access the system and block out whole sections of the diary, quicker and faster than we can book – our pupils – your constituents cannot get a look in, are you aware of this? There are careers on hold and lost on not being able to book a test, house moves abandoned because a licence would be needed for the new location for a larger or better home and job or, educational prospects. Relationships wrecked and lost due to the stress that builds up within a home. Why are you allowing this to go on?

I recently appeared on the BBC SE News bulletin with 2 of my pupils to highlight this issue with one pupil being interviewed again the following morning on BBC Radio Sussex. The BBC were very interested and supportive of the issue we are having. Both of these pupils have lost tests, and the additional problem of having their theory test certificates expire, through not being able to book within the time frame left open, on the booking system. Both pupils have tried getting into the system morning, noon, and night to find that if they are early in the queue only to have the system drop out, and when they log in again discover they have dropped thousands of places down the queue. This is a farce! Both have since retaken the theory and passed the exam and are now logging in trying to re-book again, and again, and again.... Why do you allow the DVsA to continue to treat your constituents, and future voters, in this manner, it is abuse of customer service. If Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury, ASDA or any other service provider were to treat their customers like this there would be a national outcry.  You, our MPs, would be up in arms waving your dispatch papers around calling for the heads of CEOs of the relevant companies, yet the DVSA CEO carries on collecting her salary and BONUS!!? Should the DVsA CEO Ms Loveday Ryder, step down and make way for a better, more committed person who is able to solve the problem?

A refund of Theory Test Fees.

We, at the AADI, contacted you (DVsA),  in the past about the issue of expiring certificates due to the delays caused by the COVID pandemic and were told that you wanted the pupils knowledge to be current and would not consider approaching parliament to extend them, yet Northern Ireland did – please explain?  The DVsA are happy to allow the certificates to expire and charge another £23 for the theory test, and yet it is the DVsA mismanagement of their business that is causing the long delays and the expiration of these certificates, because the customers they sold this exam to with the promise of a practical test to follow is worthless at best!!

Is this a fraudulent activity

 Is this a fraudulent activity as the prospect of booking a practical test quite often just does not exist? Surely the option of a refund if the service falls must be considered and all pupils who have been unable to book a test due to the shortage of examiners at your test centres must be given a refund? This is exactly what all the other service providers in the country do. If an ADI does not act professionally and fail to provide the lessons that were paid for then a refund is required under the ‘Fit and Proper’ requirements of our licence to teach? The DVsA are failing to provide the simple service they exist for and must issue the relevant refunds due to lack of examiners, otherwise this is questionable behaviour. Are the DVsA no longer ‘Fit and Proper’ for the service they fail to provide, and should it be privatised?

Examiner retention is poor

Examiners are being recruited, trained, deployed, and leaving due to the working conditions and from treatment they receive. Morale is at an all-time low within the DVsA front-line staff with examiner retention rates allegedly falling through the floor. There is not only a shortage of examiners, but supervisors are also being worked to stretching point and no longer used as back up examiners, so no help with the waiting lists there. Why is Hastings and the surrounding area being treated as a third world country and given examiners as if distributing charitable aid and handouts. There are test centres in the country with 7,8,9 and more examiners, and whilst I full accept that these may not be able to be transferred to our area surely your constituents deserve equal rights and standards of service, and not looked on as the poor cousins out in the sticks. Does the DVsA have an agenda to close our local test centre and make our pupils travel an additional 10 – 15 miles each way to another centre? I have not seen any vacancies for examiners advertised locally for some time – why? There are adverts for managers and digital ducks all over the place, examiners NO. All chiefs and no Indians comes to mind.

Get your fingers out of your parliamentary bottoms and helps us!

 This week we have witnessed the collapse of the latest high street store Wilko, if it were not for HMG turning a blind eye to what is going on and allowing the monopoly that is the DVsA to continue. If the DVsA was a private company, its business plan and model would have been stamped on and changes forced upon it. It also would have gone to the wall like a runaway truck on a steep incline with no brakes. Perhaps then we would get a working model, after all, it is only a booking system.

Mental health is taking its toll - Get your fingers out and please do something!

The pressure on us and the pupils is growing exponentially as the risk and pressure from the fear of failing is magnified by the delay in being able to re-book the test, if necessary, bearing down heavily on each test candidate on their big day. Do you think this is fair?

I have had pupils with multiple degrees, MAs, in senior managerial positions – both male and female, breaking down on lessons at the prospect of failing the test and the continuous investment trying to keep practice up for a distant re-sit - that is if it can be booked. The mental health issues on the build up to a test are taking their toll, the like of which I have never witnessed in my 40 years in the job and the repercussions are yet to be seen. Examiners face the backlash when it goes wrong and because of this, experienced examiners are now leaving in their droves, exacerbating the situation.

Please for the sake of your constituents get your fingers out of your parliamentary bottoms and help us. We are desperate. We have 52 members in our local group covering Bexhill, Hastings and out to Rye, as I stated above, with let’s say 20 pupils each, this makes over 1,000 families with all their friends and relatives affected by this issue. Our instructors are juggling lessons with pupils taking lessons on alternate weeks trying to cope. We, and the system are at breaking point.

We are now faced with the additional annual stress of juggling our diaries as our pupils return to college and get their new timetables. This almost inevitably means they cannot keep their existing lesson slots with us. More complicated juggling of our diaries and managing varied pick-up points juggling with traffic schedules and the stress this entails.

We have pupils who have finished college, and now going onto university, not having taken a driving test yet. We are either trying to find colleagues local to their university who, just like us, are fully booked and have no vacancies, or trying to juggle in the odd lesson when they can come home and take a test that they are still trying to book around here. Why are none of you listening, do you not care?

The BBC have taken an interest as stated above and are returning to the issue this week – watch this space.  I have been approached by another national paper that is also taking this up by the end of the week, the Guardian/Observer have already shown an interest, but not our MPs – WHY? Do we not matter? If you want the vote of your constituents you need to get voting for us in the House, because if you don’t the backlash of this will continue ad infinitum when employers start to run out of licence holders yet again – Remember the lorry driver debacle after the pandemic, this is the next cliff-edge awaiting you.

Don Harris ADI. AADI.

ADI No.86323

Bexhill and Hastings area

 Edit shown in ITALICS to update. 13/09/2023

DVsA ... Driver and Vehicle standards Agency..... lower case ‘s’ used to show the low respect that ‘we’  have for the standard of service we receive.

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