Last month I posted an open email to my 2 local MPs and asked for help.

The response has been, quite simply awesome. As a result I have spoken to the BBC and appeared on the South East local 6.0pm news bulletin with 2 of my pupils that I wrote about. One of them demonstrating on the BBC laptop that it was impossible to book a test this year in Hastings.

The Guardian were in touch and asked a lot of questions which appeared in their paper, along with comments by others around the country about the state of affairs that we, and our pupils, have to live with.  The Sun followed up with another article about a week afterwards hammering the same topic and showing the extent that learners are going to, to take a driving test. Many driving hundreds of miles across the country to entirely different areas out of shear desperation.

The BBC followed up with an article on ADIs who have just given up and left the industry for an easier life.

Thank you BBC, Thank you Guardian, Thank you the Sun. But, most of all, thank you, to all you ADIs and others out there who read and shared that last blog getting the word out nationwide about the mess of the driving test booking system.  It worked, as you can see from the media activity above, and it had the desired effect.

The DVsA sat up and pulled some fingers out.  They emailed us all on the 27 September with their proposals to resolve the problem

Can of Worms

Unfortunately, this has now opened a whole new can of worms and I have received messages and calls from around the UK, from examiners and ex-examiners as well as the usual ADIs. It really is a can of worms that have been stirred up and the DVsA have thrown in the kitchen sink in a panic reaction to resolve the issue, and they now teetering on the edge of a disaster.

Regrettably, I have also discovered that a major element in the delays for driving testing is by quite a few greedy ADIs, many more than I thought would be involved. More about that to come.

Here are a few of the comments I Have received about the DVsA.

They have allegedly been told by Ministers to get it sorted. 

This is what they came up with 

"The 300 Examiners they say they’ve recruited has been eclipsed by the amount that they’ve lost and are going to lose. Even Ms Ryder when she appeared before the Parliamentary Transport Committee admitted that they were losing these at a rate of 15_20 per month....they are all gone!!! I understand of the 450 recruited, 448 have left. This leaves a nett gain of 2!

They have allegedly been told by Ministers to get it sorted. 

Every test centre manager (LDTM) Is being moved back to examiner duties until at least until March 31st 2024, or the end of the current financial year. 

All their managerial responsibilities are being given to untrained, inexperienced managers from the vehicle side of DVsA. So the building admin etc, will be looked after by someone from outside who knows nowt about the situation, or requirements of the testing side. Possibly with zero authority, just a report back position. A big help if you have any issues as the local LDTM will be out on test and unable to answer any queries, or issues that the ADI, or candidate may have. You may be able to get a fresh toilet roll - but I wouldn't risk it.

There will be no check testing of examiners, no examiner appraisals, nothing whatsoever remotely linked to management of examiners will take place at all. WHY? Because all other managers who have warrant cards and have worked their way up through the grades for better pay, pension, conditions and a bigger desk  are being redeployed from their office jobs back down on to front-line testing too.

These higher grades, will be on higher grades of pay than the examiners that they are now working alongside and sharing the same office, day in and day out. Plus receiving much higher bonuses for taking out candidates on weekends and bank holidays. How's that for happy families in the office?

Just think, p****d off managers taking out your pupils out on test. Especially with the poor grade of private runners now apparently attending with no dual-controls.  Add in the regular examiners working alongside them on a much lower rate of pay. Happy days!

I feel there may be an increase in the number of examiners going on sick leave, or refusing tests for defects. Check those lights, tyres etc., are all in good order.

No Standards Checks, only PT2 and PT3 being conducted. So no support for the newly qualified ADIs out there if things are not right as no tips, or guidance from the LDTM.

I remember when I started my LDTM in Wood Green north London, Dave Mellish, was brilliant and gave me quite a few tips.

Remember you will have no manager to ask for clarification, they will be too busy with their own tests. You could always ask the new building manager though - good luck. 

This has clearly not been thought through by anyone with at least 2 brain cells 

ADIs will not be able to speak to a manager because there won't be one. 

Complaints, local issues etc, won’t be dealt with, prearranged group attendances will be cancelled. 

Any 'manager' you do get to speak to, won’t be a test centre manager, just a clerk of works so won’t be able to help anyway. 

As the DVsA email says "some staff who are trained have moved on to other roles in the agency, including as local driving test managers, operational managers and policy experts. Until now some of these individuals have been testing in addition to their usual job" Did you know that from as far away as the FIT team, staff have been 'keeping their hand in'  helping out at weekends and on bank holidays at nicely enhanced bonus rates per test, on top of their daily rate. This despite examiners refused a pay rise.

Is there any wonder that there is much discontent in the ranks. Rank and file examiners on a basic salary, maybe 2-3 children and wife/partner are barely making ends meet covering mortgage, rent energy bills, water rates, food and clothing etc, etc despite some allegedly working 50 hour/week . That is why they are leaving, in large numbers.  I have heard of 8+ possibles this week, just in the south alone.

If the LDTMs are out testing, who will do the quality assurance monitoring of the existing examiners, who will mentor the 'newbies' coming out of training school?  Who is going to maintain standards across the board that the DVsA so love to assure us of and brag about, who supports the newbies and makes sure they have got it right and not getting 'bad habits' and passing too many or none?  Who is going to check the gaffers now out on the front-line? Will the FIT team now be unfit for purpose?"

Morale in the examiners office is at an all time low, reminiscent of 2014 and the mass exodus, where the dvsa (DSA) lost 50% of examiners over a 2 year period. The PCS have their wellies all oiled up ready to go into action, strikes before Christmas, or just after.

Some of the reasons I would not be an examiner

1. I will allow for the effect of the C19 pandemic extending the waiting list to a degree but the increase in 'private runners' turning up and scaring the crap out of examiners, especially as there is allegedly no back-up from the DVsA if the examiner feels that the car is unsafe for the road. I'm not talking about a difference of opinion here, I am talking about canvass showing on the tread, wreck inside, smelling of a joint/smoke, dodgy fittings that I would refuse.
2. Regular appearance of certain ADIs with shockingly poor candidates - brown trouser standard that when the ADI is spoken to about the poor drive they claim to not know them as they have just picked them up from the station.  So many of us get these offers in our inboxes but you must be desperate to take them on and risk your car, or is it your car?

The DVsA know all about these ADIs but do nothing about them, perhaps the FIT team are too busy doing overtime to check it out and the  regular examiners have to suck it up.  Also, these are the ones that the DVsA would call in for a Standards Check on the totting up system of faults, not the ADI that just has a run of fails every now and then. This is normal, unlike some of those trying to sell ' urgently needed courses' How can they be called in if they wont even remove them from the register as fit and proper for taking up such low quality candidates.  Not just my view, but that of an awful lot of examiners are saying this.

    3. The examiners feel like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed on Bull manure. :)   Frequently I have heard examiners say they get the news from the waiting room before it comes through on the official line. Though this is supposed to have improved. Many ex ADIs have kept their email registered with the DVsA so that when they cross over to the examining side they still get the latest news directly and sooner.

   4.Refused holiday requests and not being able to take time off to suit family needs. eg. no extra time off at Christmas on consecutive years. Usually this is rotated around the office among the staff in the outside world.

   5.Some examiners having to do 50 hours + per week to make ends meet. Not too clever when you are in the car with people you do not know, often with no dual controls - dangerous, especially when you consider the increase in free runners turning up in an old banger that is barely roadworthy and just 'having a go' because their ADI has refused their car for test. Or they have either booked a test miles from home and cannot find an ADI willing to take them on, or used one of the multiple 'booking agencies' that have cropped up and flogging tests for bundles of cash....quoted £250.

    6.According to one examiner I spoke to they said that pre- covid they would take out possibly one non dual controlled car per day. Now, it can be easily 3 per day and some of them are deadly.  I have heard of one newbie examiner on the grapevine, who returned to the Dtc after the second test of the day, white as a sheet, and handed in the warrant card saying the job was far too dangerous for the money they were being paid and left.

No support from the DVsA

..........

Greedy or is it opportunistic ADIs

This is the bit that shocked me the most, and the DVsA are aware of it too, just as they are of all the points raised above.

There are about 5 national 'booking agents' that swamp the booking system and sell on the test appointments. We,  and our pupils cannot compete with these guys as we do not have the time to sit at the keypad looking and waiting for tests appointments to appear.  These are the main perpetrators, doing it in the 1000's, but you will also have  individuals at each test centre doing the same with say 10-30 pupils licences! I have been contacted by a colleague in London who is concerned about a local ADI doing just this. He has on multiple occasions written to the DVsA on this very subject and says it is like pushing water uphill.

Let's consider the logic of it and how they cheat the rest of us. Note, none of this is illegal, but, is it right?

 If football can regulate against the on-selling of tickets by pimps at a profit, why can't the DVsA take action?

This instructor has access to say 30 licences, the ADI can then book 30 tests and resell 8 times as he moves them about, he then has blocked up 90 tests, that's almost 1 examiner for 3 weeks in the next 6 months. An eye opener when you consider it.  If you then consider 10 ADIs doing this, - that is a whole 7 months blocked for 1 examiner for everyone else.  That is just single ADIs doing this. Then add in the big boys and the size of the problem becomes evident very quickly.  Even the examiners want this stopped to help us!! It will be a pain for the honest instructors, like you and I. 

Example.Pupil dislikes the ADI's attitude and changes to another ADI. Now very happy and the progress is going well so she decides to book a test, only to find she has one booked, without her knowledge,  and certainly not having paid for it. Her old instructor has been using her details without her knowledge to book and sell on tests. The tests are allocated to other pupils with sufficient funds and transferred over. A very nice little earner at £250 a test, it mounts up very quickly to thousands £££s. This is very similar to the N London ADI I mentioned above, who contacted me recently.  This is out and out dishonesty and surely must be fraudulent, Yet it is quite common practice. Why do the DVsA not call these people in for interview with the police present and start proceedings to remove them from the register?.... Ah yes, the FIT Team are busy examining in their spare time.

This is the fault of the OBS - it needs to be shut down

The suggestion is to temporarily shut down the Business booking system completely and then the the resale of tests will disappear - the demand will evaporate. And, the waiting list will vanish in 6 - 9 months. There will be no market, or demand for these people.

Only the pupil will be able to book their test and can postpone if not ready, but, no swapping of tests as now.  This will involve the pupil getting the approval of the ADI to book, and when to book, individually and will exclude these people who are openly taking advantage of the system.  It will massively reduce the NTU's as candidates will be better prepared and with an ADI they trust. And the DVsA blame us ADIs for.  Unfortunately the OBS is the idea of the DVsA but very badly managed so will MS Ryder admit she is wrong and make the change. I doubt it.

Ms Ryder, over to you and your team. What do you think of the idea from your own staff and your ADIs?

.

NB: DVsA ... Driver and Vehicle standards Agency..... lower case ‘s’ used to show the low respect that ‘we as ADIs, and now the examiners’ also have for the standard of service we all receive.

As usual, if there is anything that you see is incorrect or, plain wrong, I apologise, and if you drop a line via the Contact Us page it will be edited.