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The DVSA has said:
"The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) needs learners’ and the driver training industry’s support to help us build the nation back better.

Safely reducing the current waiting times for a driving test is a matter of national importance to enable people to be able to drive to access employment, education, healthcare and social activities. You have a crucial role to play in this.

We want you to know we fully appreciate how difficult the past 17 months have been for your businesses, lessons and pupils’ tests. We know how frustrated and disappointed your pupils feel. We therefore want to share some of the results of the lesson demand research and explain what we’ve done to reduce test waiting times, what the next steps are and what this will mean to you and your pupils.

Driving lessons research findings

Thank you to those of you who completed the survey.

The research findings reveal that 8 out of 10 of driving instructors who responded to survey currently have a waiting list – and almost half of those have 11 or more people waiting to start driving lessons.

We will use these findings to help us understand more about the demand you’re facing for driving lessons and the future demand for driving tests.

Communication research findings

The research findings reveal that many of the driving instructors who responded to the survey said they’d find local test centre engagement events useful.

As a result of this, we are planning to trial a series of these in a number of locations over the autumn.
We will share more information about this trial as soon as we are able to.

Helping those driving instructors who need it most

We want to help those driving instructors who find it difficult to meet the standards. This will allow us to prioritise those instructors who need the most support.

High-quality instruction leads to high-quality learner drivers who’ll be better prepared to pass their test first-time. Reducing the number of candidates who need to retake their driving test will really help to tackle the current waiting list.

We will be sharing more details about how this will work with you very shortly.

Increasing the number of test appointments

The latest phase of the new driving examiner testing framework trial has now concluded, and we are now planning to extend this to more locations ahead of agreeing a final roll out date.

Measures to help learners fully prepare for the test and further modernise the driving test

We are also developing a range of other regulatory measures aimed at making every test count. They will encourage learners to be fully prepared and modernise further elements of the driving test.

Any measures will be subject to consultation. We will give more details on these as soon as possible, but the measures being considered include:

• increasing the number of days a candidate must wait before applying for a further test if they have failed
• increasing the number of days’ notice a candidate must give DVSA to cancel or reschedule their test without losing their fee
• changing the way the eyesight element of the test is conducted
• introducing a digital test pass badge

Exploring ways to help learner drivers and their families understand how long it takes to learn to drive

Over the summer we will also be surveying the friends and family of learner drivers to gather feedback to help develop messaging to manage their expectations and encourage them not to take their test before they are ready.

This will be supported by the research we carried out in 2019 with learner drivers and driving instructors to help understand what would encourage learner drivers to have more driving practice."

The DITC thoughts:

Firstly, it is very clearly stated that these will "be subject to consultation", so everything is conjecture and opinion from here down. However, we have to acknowledge that something needs to be done. We are speaking to hundreds of ADIs who are seriously concerned for their own mental health. The demand for help from learners and parents/partners of learners is like living next door to a woodpecker incessantly banging but with little one can do about it. They have exhausted all their resources and still there seems to be little light at the end of the tunnel.

Generally speaking, Instructors are the helpers, problem solvers and carers of the community. This means they feel the pressure more than most. Our advice is:

• Set your hours and stick to them
• Set your pupil numbers and stick to them
• Accept that you cannot help everyone, so focus on doing the best you can for those you have
• Change your voicemail to reflect your position - Just new learners? A tighter area? Etc.
• If you haven't previously, consider published prices to 'pre-qualify' enquiries

In response to the DVSA announcement, our thoughts are that we expect a KPI based approach. KPIs are Key Performance Indicators, and we know that DVSA monitors fault and pass rates. We, therefore, expect them to target instructors with below-average results based on this management information. You can request a copy of your report stats from adi.enforcement.analysis.request@dvsa.gov.uk

A drive toward improvement and readiness, rather than "Just come back, we will see you soon".

And possibly iPad based eyesight tests rather than the numberplate based checks. This sounds questionable, but opticians use a similar digital approach and it would save time getting the tape measure out!

We welcome your input and thoughts!

P.S. If we do go digital - DITC members can get student discounts on iPads and other tech solutions with their TOTUM card.