{"id":4962,"date":"2011-02-04T21:12:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T21:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=4962"},"modified":"2011-02-04T21:12:36","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T21:12:36","slug":"driving-test-centres-to-be-axed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=4962","title":{"rendered":"Driving Test Centres To Be Axed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the news today, inflated media stories about plans to close driving test centres and move them all to supermarkets. This one from Sky News via Yahoo.<\/p>\n

Note the wording that they “could be axed” – in inverted commas. That’s mediatalk for “we made this up to make it more interesting even though it is completely untrue to the best of our knowledge”.<\/p>\n

\n

Leaked documents suggest the Driving Standards Agency is looking at plans to close down test centres and use private firms as “delegated examiners”. <\/p>\n

The new plans could see examiners based at supermarkets and community centres. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The reality of this is that the Mickey Mouse government we are currently having to put up with is forcing departments like the DSA to make major cuts. The DSA has previously closed many small town-centre branches and combined many of them to form larger MPTCs (multi-purpose test centres) – which makes sense – and it got the usual flak from people about it. Ironically, it’s always the same people who object to anything the DSA does.<\/p>\n

Personally, I don’t like the idea of outsourcing and privatisation. It never worked before, so it can’t possibly work now – and especially not with the driving test (not if they want to make sure the test is discriminating enough to keep at least a few idiots off the roads, anyway). All you have to do is look at call centres being run by contractors, exams being marked by external agencies, and so on to see it is a non-starter.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this government won’t see it like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the news today, inflated media stories about plans to close driving test centres and move them all to supermarkets. This one from Sky News via Yahoo. Note the wording that they “could be axed” – in inverted commas. That’s mediatalk for “we made this up to make it more interesting even though it is completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t