Transport Select Committee oral hearing 24th March 2014
On the 24th March the Transport Select Committee held a hearing to discuss the Governments motoring agencies from a user's perspective.
Adrian Jones, National Officers from Unite the Union attended as did John Lepine, General Manager of MSA.
John Lepine was there purely representing MSA, we, or the NASG were not consulted prior to the meeting.
John Lepine was concerned that the abolition of the counterpart of the driving licence would cause problems for MSA members and the profession in general. This topic has been covered in previous e-newsletters. However our (driving instructors) views don’t seem to be taken into consideration.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=15180
If you take the time to listen to the recording of the hearing you will note the potential income the DVLA could derive by abolishing the counterpart. DVLA have stated the end of the counterpart would save them £8 million; from DVSA figures on an earlier page you can see that they conduct 1.6 million driving tests; whilst we know not all are first timers each and everyone will have to have their licence checked by the DVSA prior to their test, this we believe will be undertaken by electronic means; we on the other hand will have to do it by a premium phone call (will the licence holder present) or an even more expensive fax or email (£5 a time).
The vehicle hire industry stated they have to check 1 in 4 licences. A quick bit of maths shows this produces an income to the DVLA of just over £9 million, add in the potential earnings from the driver training profession of £1.1 million. We would now need to add in the income from professional drivers, these as a matter of course are required to have their driving licence checked periodically (normally every 6 months). The figures involved we have no idea, but it’s estimated to be around 7 million drivers, this would produce a further income of £20 million.
Far from saving money for the end users, namely us; DVLA have by reducing their cost have increased their income. This in the private sector would be a great move, but this far from reducing costs for both us and the haulage, freight and vehicle hire industry. (Responses received on next pages)
DVLA will also make a great deal of income when the car tax disc is abolished latter this year. We will cover this in a future issue