HC Deb 17 November 2003 vol 413 c641W
Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the budget of the Driving Standards Agency is in 2003–04. [138417]

Mr. McNulty

The DSA is a trading fund and is not given a budget by the Department. The Agency's business plan for 2003–04 plans for an expenditure of some £110 million.

Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many daily(a) telephone calls and (b) website hits were received on average by the Driving Standards Agency from people trying to book a driving test, in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [138419]

Mr. McNulty

During the period November 2002 to October 2003, the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) received 6,627,063 calls to the national test booking line. This is approximately 26,000 calls per working day.

Figures are not available for the number of hits on the Agency's website but, during the same period, some 327,000 theory test bookings were made online. The

1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03
Tests taken 1,202,147 1,334,829 1,274,381 1,241,364 1,346,656 1,510,018
Tests passed 579,689 634,308 583,960 570,415 605,205 675,617
Pass rate (percentage) 48.22 47.52 45.82 45.95 44.94 44.74

Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many driving test examiners have been employed in each of the last six years, expressed as(a) head count and (b) full-time equivalents. [138421]

Mr. McNulty

For the last five years for which data are readily available, the average number of driving examiners employed by the Driving Standards Agency each month was:

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 (to October)
Headcount 1,261.05 1,271.08 1,313.06 1,391.25 1,493.05
Full-time equivalent 1,257.23 1,268.07 1,311.34 1,388.84 1,488.14

Note:

Figures before 1999 are not held.