The DVSA has reported its findings and conclusions following the consultation earlier this year into modernising driver training. The details of the outcome are as follows:
The government introduced a simpler grading structure for approved driving instructors (ADIs) on 7 April 2014.
The government has also decided to:
- take steps to help ADIs publish and publicise their grade
- look at the options for replacing the ADI part 3 test with one that uses the same criteria and marking system as the ADI standards check
- continue to look at the possibilities of introducing a vocational qualification, while making sure that concerns raised can be addressed
- talk to the driver training industry about how we can best reform the trainee instructor licence
- start work on an online booking service for ADI standards checks
- consult separately about changing the ADI fee structure
- change the law so an ADI can ask for their name to be removed from the ADI register
- provide the option for an ADI to take an ADI standards check to renew a lapsed registration, after talking about the practical implications of this with the ADI national associations
- not pursue the introduction of fines (called ‘civil sanctions’) that the ADI Registrar could issue to ADIs for the time being
The grading structure is obviously already implemented – apart from the information in the embedded link in the quoted text above, I wrote about it back in March.
Of those yet to be implemented, the wording of the first one is interesting. It’s being interpreted ambiguously by many of the radical rabble-rousers out there. If you look at it objectively, what the DVSA is saying is that they will “help” ADIs publish and publicise their grade. They don’t actually say that they ARE going to publish them whether ADIs like it or not, yet it is that threat – which first surfaced several years ago – and I think it is that earlier proposition which prevents many of the radicals seeing this current statement for what it is.
The second one is also interesting. Recently, some crackpot had concluded on a forum that I had declared somewhere that they had replaced the PST marking sheets. Actually, I had said nothing of the kind – what I had said was that in view of the changes to the Check Test, with it becoming the Standards Check and all, with the integration of CCL topics within that I couldn’t imagine that the Part 3 test would remain as it was. I simply pointed out that if the PST sheets changed, I would obtain copies and provide them for download. So I think this particular outcome vindicated my comments completely, though anyone with an ounce of common sense would have realised the Part 3 was going to have to change. Whether it does or not even after this is another matter – there’s a General Election next year, and all of this may end up swept into the gutter.
There’s further talk of reforming the trainee (pink) licence. Previously, the talk was of getting rid of it completely, though this has been scaled back to merely “changing” it. It’s still as far away from actually changing as it was three years ago. And as I say, there’s an election next year.
All the other stuff is fairly niche, and doesn’t really affect most instructors (well, not unless they’re fully paid-up unionistas, in which case every syllable and letter has to be nit-picked to death).
On a different note, it’s worth looking at some of the responses which are quoted verbatim in a separate document accessible from the findings link. Apart from the appalling typing, grammar, and spelling, I couldn’t believe one response to the issue of vocational qualifications. The respondent has written just short of 6,000 words in his reply! Others have used the opportunity to have a go at the DSA/DVSA. I love this one:
The current system is useless
Bless. I bet it took him all night to write that, and no doubt he had help! But it illustrates why the DVSA is sometimes reluctant to listen to “the industry” or “the associations” if this is the kind of input they’re going to get. The current system isn’t useless. It could be better, but no one knows how at the moment – after all, Mr “the current system is useless” is typical of those who propose alternatives simply by virtue of opposing the current state of affairs.