Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-06-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average waiting time is for a driving test appointment (a) in England, (b) at the Halifax test centre and (c) at the Huddersfield test centre.
Andrew Jones
The average waits for a practical car driving test appointment in (a) England and (b) at Halifax test centre and (c) at Huddersfield test centre are as follows:
England – 12 weeks
Halifax driving test centre – 18 weeks
Huddersfield driving test centre – 17 weeks
The main cause of current high practical driving test waiting times across the country is a significant and sustained surge in demand for driving tests. The last time there was demand at such high levels was in 2005/6.
To help address the demand, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) 2015/16 recruitment campaigns resulted in 193 new examiners starting work at test centres across Britain. A further 48 examiners have started testing since April 2016, and DVSA has made employment offers to an additional 110 people, who are currently either attending the new entrant training course, or waiting to attend one.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) also deploys driving examiners between test centres accordingly to help balance variations in demand for tests. Resources have been pooled between Huddersfield, Halifax, Steeton and Skipton, and the DVSA is currently using resource from Huddersfield and Halifax to help service demand at Steeton and Skipton.. There are five new entrant examiners currently attending training who, if successful, will be deployed into Steeton and Skipton. This will have the knock on effect of helping to reduce waiting times at both the Halifax and Huddersfield test centres.
