Government pledges to cut practical driving test delays

The Government has pushed back its deadline to resolve the current driving test backlog originally set by the DVSA by over half a year, blaming an influx in demand after the Covid-19 pandemic.

As part of Labour’s ‘Plan for Change’, the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, has announced new measures to slash record waiting times for practical driving tests. These currently sit at an average of 22 weeks, up from 18 weeks when the party first came to power in the middle of last year.

With a deadline of next summer, this is over half a year later than originally proposed by the DVSA. In December last year, the agency pledged to bring the backlog down to seven weeks by the end of 2025, meaning the government could miss its original deadline by as much as seven months.

Speaking to Auto Express, a government spokesperson said: “The increase in demand we have seen since the pandemic is here to stay, so we need to change how we deliver driving tests, and that will take a bit of extra time.”

The changes include asking non-practicing qualified examiners working for the DVSA to step in and oversee tests, hiring more examiners, reintroducing overtime and accelerating the consultation into the abuse of driving test booking systems. Scammers have been using bots to book tests, reselling them for as much as £200, which is one of the key issues the government is looking into. 

All of this, the government says, will free up as many as 10,000 additional tests per month; with the first of these slated to arrive by the end of May. The DfT also expects the average test wait time to drop to seven weeks before the end of next summer – but this is still above the average six-week wait pre-Covid.

Despite the aforementioned increase in wait times over the past nine months, Alexander was quick to blame it on the previous Conservative administration, saying: “We inherited an enormous backlog of learners ready to ditch their L-plates but being forced to endure record waiting time for their tests.

“I am instructing DVSA to take further action immediately to reduce waiting times, which will see thousands of additional tests made available every month,” Alexander continued. “We’re acting fast to get Britain’s drivers moving.”

How has the announcement been received?

Nevertheless, the government’s announcement has been welcomed by many, with the managing director of the AA Driving School, Emma Bush, saying that “there is an urgent need for effective action to bring waiting times down to an acceptable level and, as such, we welcome today’s announcement giving further details of how the DVSA will meet its target waiting time of seven weeks by the end of the year.”

Such support was echoed by road safety charity IAM Road Smart, with its director of policy and standards, Nicholas Lyes, stating the changes “will start to make a positive difference so that learners can focus on becoming safe drivers rather than deal with the stress of long practical test waiting times.”

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