§ Mr. Peter BottomleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 27 October 1995 to the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), 465W Official Report, column 865, what percentage of people taking the driving test fail after the (a) first, (b) second, (c) third, (d) fourth, (e) fifth, or (f) at their sixth or subsequent attempts. [41058]
§ Mr. NorrisThis is an operational matter for the Driving Standards Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to my hon. Friend.
Letter from B. L. Herdan to Mr. Peter Bottomley, dated 2 November 1995:
The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your Question about the percentage of people taking the driving test who fail. We do not routinely collect this information as it does not directly affect the operation of the Agency.For consistency of testing, and in fairness to the candidate, it is preferable if the examiner is not made aware of the number of previous attempts a candidate has made at a test. The overall failure rate on driving test in the last two financial years was:
- 1993–94: 52%
- 1994–95: 53%
As part of our third Customer Survey, completed in March this year—the results of which were published in July, we asked a random sample of all our customers whether it was their first test or a repeat attempt. Of 1,187 people in the sample who had recently taken their driving test, 29% (340) had just failed and of these failures 26% (88) were at the first attempt, 34% (114) at the second, 21% (72) at the third, 9% (30) at the fourth, 6% (19) at the fifth and 5% (17) were at their sixth or subsequent attempt.