A critical shortage of driving examiners means the massive backlog for driving tests across Britain is not expected to ease significantly for another two years, forcing nearly a third of learners to pay third parties up to £500 to secure a slot.
System Failure and Exploitative Practices
According to a damning new report from the National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has repeatedly failed to hire enough examiners despite multiple recruitment campaigns. This failure has crippled its capacity to increase the number of available tests.
The situation has created a ripe environment for exploitation. The NAO revealed that nearly one in three learner drivers are now resorting to paying third-party companies, which use automated 'bots' to snap up test slots the moment they become available, only to resell them at a huge markup.
Worsening Delays and Missed Targets
The backlog, severely exacerbated by Covid-19 restrictions that halted 1.1 million tests in 2020/21, shows little sign of abating. An estimated 360,000 of those postponed tests remain unbooked today.
Average waiting times have ballooned. In September, learners faced a 22-week wait for a test across Britain, a stark increase from the approximately five-week wait seen in February 2020 before the pandemic.
Consequently, the DVSA has been forced to push back its own targets. The agency no longer expects to meet its goal of reducing the average waiting time to seven weeks until November 2027. Its original timeline aimed to achieve this by the end of 2025.
Recruitment Struggles and Proposed Solutions
The NAO's investigation pinpointed high exit rates among existing examiners due to "perceived uncompetitive pay and safety concerns". Despite launching 19 recruitment campaigns, the DVSA has only managed to increase its examiner workforce by a net gain of 83 since February 2021, against a target of 400.
Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, stated: "The current system for providing driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales is not working satisfactorily, with long waiting times and exploitation of learner drivers by resellers of test slots."
In response to the crisis, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced several countermeasures. Last month, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed that military driving examiners will be mobilised to test civilians.
Other planned actions include a crackdown on test resale profiteering. New rules will stipulate that only learners – not their instructors – can book tests, and test locations can only be moved to centres near the original booking, limiting the resale market. The standard fee for a test remains £62.
The NAO has recommended that the DVSA and DfT urgently assess whether current measures protect learners and investigate how to properly boost the examiner workforce to restore a fit-for-purpose service.
