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Working from home has contributed to such bad delays people have lost their jobs at the Driving and Driving Licensing Agency (DVLA) while waiting for a driving licence, a report by MPs has found.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that the DVLA relied heavily on people on the ground to process applications.
When staff stopped going to the office due to Covid restrictions in 2020, there were delays.
This was particularly a problem for those applicants with medical conditions who mostly apply on paper, which the DVLA does not allow to be done from home.
More than 33,000 of those applicants had to wait more than 200 days for their permits to be processed.
In some cases, the delays have hit people’s incomes and caused them to lose jobs, while others have seen the delay take a toll on their mental health, the report said.
Widespread errors in operations
It revealed that more than 3 million people who applied for a driving license since April 2020 have had delays in their applications.
It found widespread failures in the way the authority operated and was set up, including in its call centres, where 94 per cent of the 60 million calls it received between 2020 and 2022 went unanswered.
Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the committee, said: “The pandemic has inevitably made operations more difficult, but DVLA and the Department for Transport were not up to the challenge of keeping essential driving license services running, especially for those who needed it most. .
“Some of the The operation of the DVLA is outdatedit does not have a comprehensive strategy for modernization, and we are not sure about the PAC that they are more prepared for the next crisis.”
The report looked at how dependent many processes are on people working in the office, particularly when processing paper applications.
It said the DVLA was still dealing with a significant amount of physical paper applications “which can only be processed on site.
“Covid-19 restrictions introduced in March 2020 meant that most DVLA staff were unable to work at its Swansea site, which affected DVLA’s ability to process applications.
“Since then, DVLA has taken longer than usual to process driving license applications from customers who applied with paper documents or informed of medical conditions, resulting in backlogs.”
Delays experienced by applicants for driver’s licenses he has had real-world impactspeople who lost their jobs due to delays or were prevented from working contacted the board.
In one case, a respondent who lived in a rural community said he was unable to return to work, leading to financial difficulties. In another case, a bus driver was forced to wait five months for a permit.
The target time is 90 days
Some of the worst delays were for people who had health problemswith 2,000 of these applicants they are waiting for more than 350 working days for a decision. The target time for DVLA to process medical applications is 90 days.
The DVLA has told the PAC that it expects to resolve the backlog by early 2023.
The pandemic has “exposed weaknesses” in its operation, which relies heavily on staff working on-site, particularly IT systems that hold personal customer data that cannot be accessed elsewhere, MPs said.
DVLA’s traditional design for centralized office space meant it was susceptible to disruption during a pandemic and initially became susceptible to localized contagion.
This meant that in the early days of the pandemic, it was forced to invest in new buildings to cushion the impact.
The committee made a number of recommendations on how to improve the service, including doing more to encourage more people to apply online and putting in place better fast-track customer systems that badly affected by delays.
A DVLA spokesman said: “We are back to normal processing times in our services. All standard paper applications have been returned to normal times by May 2022.
“Our online services have worked well during the pandemic and for the vast majority of our customers, their dealings with DVLA would be seamless. 98% of people who applied online received their driving license within just a few days.”
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