DVLA under fire as drivers wait up to 10 months to get licences
PEOPLE with medical conditions and disabilities are suffering “gross discrimination” from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) with waiting times for licence applications taking months, ministers have been warned.
Concerns have been raised in the UK Parliament over the agency’s performance because of the impact it is having on people’s lives.
Glenrothes MP Peter Grant said he is aware of at least one case of someone waiting 10 months, “quite a few” waiting six months, and of “several” losing conditional job offers owing to the waiting times.
He said: “It’s having a real impact on people’s lives.”
One 60-year-old HGV driver said he lost his job as a result of a five-month wait while renewing his licence, while a 17-year-old said a seven-month wait for her provisional licence is impacting her career and social life.
Mr Grant said the contrast in service for those with and those without medical conditions is “almost certainly unlawful”, and warned that the Government could be facing “a massive compensation bill if they do not get their act together pronto”.
He labelled the situation “gross discrimination against people who have to declare a medical condition”, adding they are forced to use an “outdated manual system” rather than the online one.
The DVLA has acknowledged the “vast majority” of applicants waiting 10 weeks or more have a medical condition that must be investigated, with successful online applicants receiving their licence within days.
Mr Grant said: “The crux of the issue is that DVLA are failing to provide the service they are supposed to be providing to a significant minority of the population. It’s indefensible.
“The gap in quality of service between two groups within the population is so vast as to be unacceptable.”
He added: “It doesn’t mean anyone at DVLA has deliberately decided to discriminate, but if you look at the end product, one group of people is getting a very good service, one group of people is getting shockingly bad service and the characteristics that group of people have don’t justify that level of difference in the service.
“It justifies a degree of delay, it justifies the fact it takes longer, it doesn’t justify the fact some people get their licence in three days, and for some people it takes 10 months.”
Jennifer Kirchacz, 17, lives in Windygates, Fife, and has epilepsy but says she meets the criteria for a driving licence.
She has endured a seven-month wait and her mother, Julie Brownlie, said: “I’m all for them checking with the specialists, but they need to do it in timely way and not discriminate against people who have a condition.
“I can understand a few days longer for processing, but to wait seven months to send a form that needs to be filled in – that’s just ridiculous.”
The DVLA said before the pandemic there were normally about 400,000 applications being processed at any one time, but there are currently just over 900,000.
The DVLA said paper application services currently have longer waiting times and it says the service is expected to recover by the end of May, with medical services expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by September.
A DVLA spokesman said: “Our online services are working as normal and without delay. We handle millions of transactions every year and are currently issuing 200,000 driving licences each week.
“However, where we require additional information, such as from a driver’s doctor or where we need to refer the driver for an assessment, we would be wholly reliant on receiving this information before a decision can be made.
“Once a driver has submitted their application, they may be able to continue to drive while we are processing it, provided they have not been told by their doctor or optician they should not. We have recruited more staff, have increased overtime and opened new customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham to help reduce waiting times.”
It’s having a real impact on people’s lives