From 6th April 2010 you will be asked if you would like someone to sit in the back during your driving test. Ideally, this person will be your intructor or someone who has been teaching you to drive. The choice is entirely yours – you’re the one who is taking the test.
The DSA would rather it was your instructor. This change is part of an ongoing series of changes to the driving test, and is a compromise – possibly temporary – between it being mandatory for your instructor to be there (what the DSA originally wanted), and the instructor usually not being there at all (unless it is one of those busybody types who can’t wait to get in the back on every test).
You have always been allowed to ask for your instructor to accompany you. The only change is that now you will be asked specifically if you want your ADI there. That’s all.
I have always made it clear to my learners that they can have me there if they want to. I have made it clear that it is their choice. I have also pointed out that I can have absolutely no positive effect on the outcome of the test, and seeing as I weigh roughly the same as a moderately sized herbivore (more usually seen wandering around the Serengeti, not cramped in the back of a driving test), I might even have a negative one.
In the end, it is your choice. It always has been.