Driving Tests (Hansard, 13 July 1994)

§ Mr. Key

Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Driving Standards Agency under its chief executive, Dr. Ford, and I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given. The agency's deputy chief executive, Mr. Lobo, will answer in Dr. Ford's absence on leave.

Letter from G. Lobo to Ms Joan Walley, dated 12 July 1994: The Secretary of State has asked the Chief Executive to reply to your question about the plans to end the present block-booking arrangements for motorcycle and large vehicle driving tests. I am replying as Dr. Ford is on annual leave. Block-booking is an arrangement that has enabled certain trainers to reserve blocks of test appointments without nominating candidates to use the appointment. This has commercial attractions to those training bodies as it enables them to coordinate their training programmes with test appointments that they control. Trainers have not been charged a fee for this special facility; indeed they have frequently not submitted payments for the block-booked appointments when they were reserved, whereas tests are normally paid for when they are booked. Block-booking has not been operating satisfactorily. It has involved the Agency operating a shadow booking system and administering the individual agreements. Reserving test appointments where a candidate does not exist has prevented those appointments being used by other prospective candidates and led to examiner time being wasted thus reducing productivity and increasing costs. All of this has added to the cost of the service which has had to be recovered from the test fees paid by candidates. The change is part of a package of measures to reduce the Agency's costs by an estimated £148,000 annually. All parts of the Department have been tasked with finding 20% efficiency savings over the next two years and this package will help the DSA to achieve part of that objective. Some trainers have indicated that they wish to make proposals about how the booking system could be developed in ways that would help training organisations without the problems of the present block-booking system. The Agency will consider those closely.