09/06/2021
DVSA ARE TRYING TO REDUCE THE WAITING TEST TIME FOR DRIVING TESTS...
Increasing the number of driving tests appointments
To help tackle the waiting list for driving tests we have been working on a number of ways to increase the amount of driving test appointments available.
We wanted to update you on the things we have been working on:
Returning to 7 tests a day
From Monday 14 June 2021 we will be increasing the number of tests our examiners in England, Scotland and Wales carry out each day to 7 – this is the number carried out before the pandemic.
This change will allow us to increase capacity across the national network by an average of 15,000 to 20,000 tests per month.
We are doing this because our driving examiners are now used to carrying out additional COVID-19 safety measures, so we can now carry out 7 driving tests each day with little risk of over-running.
This means we can keep these safety measures in place to protect learner drivers and examiners whilst safely increasing the number of tests per day.
We will be increasing the number of tests by adding an additional test at the end of the working day so tests currently booked will not be affected.
We’ll also be able to start offering early morning and evening tests.
When will the new appointments be available to book?
We will start gradually adding new appointments on to the booking system on a daily basis from 9 June.
Reintroducing short term cancellations
We are also reintroducing the 3 working day short notice cancellation period for practical car tests. This was temporarily suspended when we restarted testing in July 2020 following the first lockdown.
All tests taking place from Thursday 17 June 2021 will be subject to the 3 working day short notice cancellation period.
We will be writing to all candidates with tests taking place from 17 June to let them know of this change.
Potential contract for driving examiner recruitment
Another aspect of our ongoing work to reduce waiting times is recruiting additional driving examiners. We had a positive response to our recruitment campaign, but there are some areas of the country where we still need to recruit more examiners, including the South East.
To support this we are exploring options to temporarily contract in experienced driving assessors to qualify as driving examiners and will run a further recruitment campaign in the weeks ahead.