Archive - April 2011

The disease seems to be spreading. I mentioned a day or two ago about instructors up in Dumbarton ready to chain themselves to railings because they’ve convinced themselves that the test centre is going to close and they’ll all be forced to drive 10 miles – 10 whole miles –  to another one.

This is in spite of the DSA saying:

DSA plans to continue to provide driving tests in Dumbarton. There are no plans to transfer testing provision… elsewhere.

Then, of course, there was the one up in Cumnock – but it looks like the Mickey Mouse coalition government is anxious to try and win some seats back from the Scottish Nationalists and has given its personal assurance that the tiny, converted terraced house will be reinstated.

This latter story has driven a small group of instructors from Trowbridge, Wiltshire to start moaning about a test centre that was closed down in 2008 – that’s 3 years ago, for anyone who is interested. Since then, they have had to trek the many thousands of miles – well, 13 miles to be precise – to Chippenham.

The coalition has opened up a real can of worms by their stupid intereference in Scotland.

Having offices all over the place is a monumental waste of money to any business, and doubly so during a recession. Fair enough, if a business is offering a service then it needs to have offices in convenient places, but having dozens of the things within a 20 mile radius of a given city or town – which is what the DSA had built up in the past – is a joke.

It’s going to be even more of a joke now the precedent has been set by this coalition – to interfere with simple logic just to win votes.

I wonder if any of the clowns involved in these campaigns realise how much it costs to run a test centre – or how it will be paid for if tiny centres are kept open? Just watch what happens if the DSA has to increase test fees to cover it.

UPDATE 5/4/2011: I have received an email from the coordinator of the Trowbridge situation:

I just wanted to respond to your blog comments:

“This latter story has driven a small group of instructors from Trowbridge, Wiltshire to start moaning about a test centre that was closed down in 2008 – that’s 3 years ago, for anyone who is interested. Since then, they have had to trek the many thousands of miles – well, 13 miles to be precise – to Chippenham.”

I thought I’d let you know what’s actually happened.

We have been fighting to firstly save and now reopen Trowbridge DTC since 25th March 2008 (not just since the news on Scottish DTCs). Whilst the AA Route Planner may show 13 miles from the site of the previous DTC to the DTC in Chippenham to be 13 miles people in Frome (popn 24,500) are having to travel 25 miles and, considering it’s a rural area, up to an hour each way to take their tests.

Whereas the DSA state that the recession has caused around a 7% reduction in the number of tests, DSA information provided in response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request has shown that the number of people from the Trowbridge, Frome and Westbury area taking tests have dropped by 33%. Many good instructors are now having to work part time as a result and the majority have lost between 15-20% of their work (some have lost up to 40% and these aren’t bad instructors).

There has recently been a leaked DSA document released by the PCS Union stating that the DSA are looking to reduce the number of DTCs to 200 by 2015 (that’s by about half) and there has been much talk, but limited action to date, on putting suitable measures in place; surely this should have been done before they started to close DTCs, especially in major towns (Trowbridge is the County Town of Wiltshire)?

We have recenty submitted an FoI request and a request via our MP (who met with 5 other MPs with Mike Penning MP on 2nd November 2010 to discuss this issue) for details of planned and scheduled DTC closures between now and 2015. Whereas, previously, this information has been provided without any problem, the DSA are now trying to get out of and at the very least delay in providing it.

I’m assuming that you’re based in Nottingham and that you, currently,have two DTCs in your area, including an MPTC, and waiting lists of 4-6 weeks. I don’t know, since I have yet to receive the information from the DSA, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the non-MPTC isn’t closed and that, like us and other similarly affected areas have experienced, the waiting list at the MPTC for car tests doubles to 8-10 weeks as a result (we used to enjoy 3-6 week waiting lists but currently the best we enjoy is 7-8 weeks and sometimes as much as 11-12 weeks).

We may not be a large group, probably 30-50 instructors in total with an action group of about 7, but we’ve been trying for over three years to get some change and it would seem that we and others are just starting to see some results. Maybe even our and others efforts will ensure that if and when one of your local DTCs closes the waiting list won’t go above 6-7 weeks.

If you’d asked us in February 2008 whether Trowbridge DTC would close, we’d have laughed and said no chance. As an increasing number of instructors are finding to their surprise, DTC closures can happen to them.

According to the latest leaked DSA information, on a simple average, about one in two driving instructors will be hit by DTC closures and a number of those will go out of business unless suitable replacement measures are put in place.

In many areas, especially rural ones, it can take quite a while to travel 13 miles let alone 25.

And a further comment:

Based on DSA data provided in response to an FoI request, which I’ve previously referred to, there will be no additional cost to the DSA or the Government as a result of reopening Trowbridge DTC. As the direct result of reopening Trowbridge DTC, it is anticipated that the DSA will receive additional revenue of on average an additional £25,000 per annum over and above the £29,531 per annum cost to the DSA of running Trowbridge DTC (this includes travel and subsistence for examiners). I’m not saying that this will be the case in every area but I’m sure it will be in several and probably in the case of the other 5 areas that are working with us on this issue.

It’s only fair to present both opinions on the matter. That said, I am wondering how anyone could put a price on revenue to be generated by reopening a closed test centre – it implies that there are 400-500 people per annum who would not take their tests unless Trowbridge reopened, and such data are simply not available, and certainly not in a reliable form. I could just as easily say that if people want to learn to drive then they’ll do what is necessary – and that includes travelling typically 10 miles further (some obviously more, but they had to travel quite a way even when Trowbridge was operating and have now been doing the alternative for 3 years) to the now-nearest centre.

I am certain the DSA did its sums before deciding to close Trowbridge, and its data were probably far more fact-based. It’s easy to put a spin on any argument by making the necessary assumptions.

The irony is that the DSA – being a huge bureaucracy – would probably like nothing more than to open test centres in every city, town, and village (which is more or less what it was doing until a few years ago). It has been criticised in the past for the test fees it charges in order to finance this bureaucracy. You’ve had know-it-alls on forums learn a new word – Quango – just so they could keep saying it every time they mentioned the DSA.

And yet now the DSA is trying to streamline it still can’t win.