I found this article in the Financial Times today, which makes interesting reading.
I should point out that the author contacted me to ask if I would be able to offer any advice on an article she was writing about the industry (she didn’t specify what the subject was), and I replied that I would be more than happy to assist. Unfortunately, she never followed it up. From the timing of that initial contact, I don’t think the author was aware that Red Driving School (or rather, its holding group parent, LVG) was going to go into administration this week. However, I must say that the (few) data sources that have been used to produce the article appear incredibly weak and one-sided.
For example, the argument that many instructors have had to go part-time because the market is flooded is nonsense. It might be a valid opinion, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny as a fact. You can’t simply argue that because some of your best mates have had to go part-time because they can’t generate enough work, it is someone else’s fault! Being a driving instructor is a self-employed position, and many of the people quoted are simply harkening back to the good old days when there weren’t enough instructors to go around. They’ve been complaining for years.
The argument that the recession has caused learner drivers to cut back on lessons is also highly misleading and flawed. I’m know some learners have had to stop lessons because they can’t afford it, but many others have started precisely because having a driver’s licence is a distinct advantage to them gaining employment. It’s swings and roundabouts, and it always has been.
The argument that “some” people have left BSM because there is too little work is short-sighted in its scope. The important questions must be “how many?” and “for what reasons?” before citing this as evidence that the industry is in crisis (which is what older instructors have always claimed anyway). People have left BSM for all sorts of reasons (recently, because BSM changed from Corsas to FIAT 500s) – and they leave all other franchises for all sorts of reasons, too! All you have to do is scout around web forums and look for people trying to wriggle out of their agreements and you can see it isn’t just BSM, and it isn’t just because of lack of work. Plenty of people at BSM have loads of work – but they are the ones who are prepared to work the hours. There is much more to this than merely trying to tie leaving the franchise to crisis in the industry.
The article even quotes a BSM instructor who left before Christmas, using his opinion to suggest there are too many instructors or something. That instructor almost certainly left because of the FIAT 500 thing (and everything surrounding it), as did many others “just before Christmas” – but as an ADI he will have had a preconceived idea about the state of the industry (e.g. too many instructors, driving schools advertising on TV, and so on). The author of this article hasn’t allowed for any of that, probably because she wasn’t aware of it.
The article doesn’t state where this ex-BSM instructor has gone, but a lot of them have gone over to the AA, so they must think the grass is greener somewhere. Others go independent, and I suspect that the desire to go independent has a lot to do with trying to find ways to weasel out of their franchise agreements. After all, if there is no work at a big franchise (with its advertising budget and name), how the hell do they think they will fare on their own, especially when the World is about to collapse – if you listen to their daft excuses for quitting BSM in the first place? My own opinion is that someone who has been prepared to pay £350 a week for work which has allegedly been declining and inadequate for so long is hardly likely to be the wisest of people. No, the article misses out a lot of very important details.
Other comments from people interviewed also betray a very biased view on what is happening. Basically, it is a single view based on a single prejudice.
It is worth noting that between September and the start of December 2009 the number of registered ADIs rose from 45,370 to 45,740 – an increase of 370. So we had 370 new ADIs to suck up all that work appearing on the scene in a 3 month period. The number of people on “pink” (trainee) licences rose by 108 in the same period. It isn’t exactly the Armageddon being portrayed, is it? And the figures don’t include the number who will have stopped teaching due to things such as ill-health, retirement, death, or other personal reasons, and who are not in the teaching pool but remain on the register nonetheless! Furthermore, with the effects of the recession at their height, this increase in registered ADIs is quite likely to be a peak rather than a trough and so gives a reasonable pointer to how far away from meltdown we actually are.
There are fewer ADIs than you’d imagine who do this job as their sole source of income. Many are part-time to begin with and always have been, others have a second income in the household, still others just do it for pin money or as a statement of familial independence. Yet these people have opinions just as inflated as anyone else out there: just as big, just as biased, and – often – just as misguided. Can someone who is part-time or just trying to show independence at home really provide the same sort of input that someone who depends on this job to live can? Make up your own mind on that one.
The pass rate for people trying to become ADIs is appallingly low. Less than 10 out of every 100 make it, and of those who do many will not survive long (either because of poor business sense or simply because they don’t like/can’t handle the job). This probably explains why less than 400 new ADIs are appearing every three months – and many of those will just cease trading at some point.
Some areas of the country are really instructor-heavy, and you can’t deny that in these places there is an issue. But it is not like that everywhere. These top-heavy places also tend to be the ones where recession hits hardest – cities in the North East and North West, Yorkshire, parts of Scotland, Wales, etc. The chance to earn loads of money without any qualifications (if you heed the TV adverts) is bound to be attractive to many in such places, but this is where you have to try and separate emotion from business. The path to becoming an ADI has always been the same – and the lack of any need for real education as an entry criterion has also always been the same. The only thing that has changed is time: the passage of time. The world isn’t the same now as it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago, and you can’t use historical values to make business decisions in the present. Well, you can – but like I say, a lot of people fail at this even if they qualify.
I’m going to cover quite a lot of this in my series on Becoming An Instructor ( Part 1 is here). But as for the FT article, it’s a shame it didn’t look into things a little more deeply and so get a less biased set of data on which to report. As it is, it just provides grist for the mill for those who have a very one-sided (and outdated) view on this industry.