{"id":3594,"date":"2013-08-31T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=3594"},"modified":"2023-04-08T14:09:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T13:09:03","slug":"driving-test-results-rigged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=3594","title":{"rendered":"Driving Test Results Rigged?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UPDATED<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve updated this article, which was originally written 3 years ago (September 2010). The subject is going through one of its periodic revivals among the ignorati across various web forums.\"The<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time I wrote the original, there was a story doing the rounds on these forums concerning someone who called himself Jim Kerr. He claimed he had been an examiner for 23 years, and he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I HAVE JUST BEEN SACKED BY THE D.S.A.. WHY? I HEAR YOU ASK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BECAUSE, ACCORDING TO D.S.A.’S NEW “CHI” SYSTEM OF COLLECTING PASS RATES FOR EXAMINERS AT EACH TEST CENTRE, MY PASS RATE WAS HIGHER THAN THE OTHER EXAMINERS AT [named test centre] AND SO I MUST BE DOING IT WRONG.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There was much more, but that was the essence of his letter. Apparently, he\u2019d put it into leaflet form and was handing it to people turning up for their tests outside the test centre he\u2019d been sacked from. This act alone said a lot about the kind of person he must have been, and about the kind of person his employer had to put up with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, when the story broke there was the deafening sound of several thousand colostomy bags all popping at the same time as ADIs logged on to the internet for their weekly surf and saw the story! You see, many in this industry sincerely believe that driving tests are rigged, and a story like this is guaranteed to get them hyperventilating. But let’s just do a reality check for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No company the size of the DSA (now known as DVSA) sacks someone on the spot for the sort of thing Kerr was claiming. They know bloody well that people like Kerr are \u201cunion\u201d through and through, and they will only act if they\u2019ve jumped through all the right hoops \u2013 or if they are sure of gross misconduct having been committed. What usually happens in a situation like the one Kerr is claiming is that retraining is given first of all. If that fails there will be further retraining. If that also fails then you\u2019re into verbal warnings, written warnings, and final warnings. If there are still issues once all that has been done then dismissal is likely to follow. Companies who want to dismiss staff need a cast iron case and \u2013 except in the case of gross misconduct \u2013 a properly constructed paper trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging from the geographic location of the test centre in question, I’d be very surprised if Kerr hadn\u2019t<\/strong> been in the union \u2013 and even if he wasn\u2019t, if his claims came even close to being true he\u2019d have been awarded a knighthood for wrongful dismissal at any tribunal! He certainly didn\u2019t need to behave like a complete arsehole and picket the test centre to get justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words: there was probably something Kerr wasn\u2019t telling us about his dismissal (see the original update to this story for confirmation<\/a>).\"No<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about his claims? Is there any truth in them? Well, when I qualified my supervising examiner (also a test centre manager) told me this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You’ll hear a lot of stories about quotas. They aren’t true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I do is monitor all my examiners, and if one of them has a significantly higher or lower variance than the rest I look into it. If we identify a problem then this is dealt with.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I am a scientist by training, and I understand maths and statistics. What my supervising examiner told me can therefore be summarised as follows (note that in this updated version I refer to a variance of 5% instead of the 10% that was being used at the time I wrote the original article):<\/p>\n\n\n\n