Corporate report

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency business plan, 2022 to 2023

Published 17 May 2022

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Non-executive Chair and Chief Executives’ foreword

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has risen impressively to the challenges posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and we’ve been proud to lead an agency that has worked tirelessly to deliver services to our customers.

All our colleagues deserve credit for the role they have played. Together with our partners, we’ve kept Britain moving, ensuring that critical services continue to operate.

Working with the Department for Transport (DfT) to support industry, this year we:

• streamlined the testing process, increasing the number of weekly heavy goods vehicle (HGV) tests available by 90%, including providing tests for up to 11,000 new drivers through government funded HGV Skills Bootcamps
• listened to industry leaders who have told us about the issues HGV drivers faced with compulsory ongoing training arrangements - we have started to review this to support the road haulage sector and encourage even more people to return to the profession
• introduced new legislation to allow delegated driving examiners at the 3 emergency services and the Ministry of Defence to be able to carry out driving tests for one another
• supported the industry in setting up the National Council for Accredited Trailer Training to oversee voluntary training for motorists who wish to tow for business or leisure

And among other measures we have:

• consulted on driving tests, seeking views on ideas to improve availability and processes
• been working with industry to manage vehicle MOT demand peaks for light and heavy vehicles and implement the recommendations of the Heavy Vehicle Testing review
• worked with National Highways and DfT to review the rules in The Highway Code to improve safety for pedestrians, particularly children, older adults and disabled people, cyclists and horse riders
• prepared for the changes to the UK vehicle operator licensing regime which come into force in May 2022 following the conclusion of the UK-EU negotiations and the signing of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)
• met the Government Fleet Commitment for 25% of our car fleet to be ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) by 31 December 2022
• continued our vital roadside and other enforcement checks to keep roads, safe, using intelligence to target the serious and serially non-compliant

While challenges remain, particularly for our driver services, we have made significant progress over the last year.

We’re on track to recover our driver testing services for our customers this year.

Moving Britain forward

Technology will drive radical changes in transport and a priority for the agency this year is to consult on and share our 10-year vision and 3-year strategic action plan. These will set out our ambitions for moving Britain forward into the next decade.

This business plan sets out our priorities for recovery and our major projects for 2022 to 2023. It communicates how the agency is changing to make sure we establish the right foundations for our future.

During this coming year, we will build on the work already in place to develop a stronger customer and service focus within our culture. And we’ll continue to build on our work with partners towards an integrated approach to safer and more sustainable roads.

Nick Bitel
DVSA Non-Executive Chair

Loveday Ryder
DVSA Chief Executive

Who we are and what we do

DVSA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Transport. We employ around 4,600 people across Great Britain to help you stay safe.

Our governance

Our Chief Executive, Loveday Ryder leads the agency with the support of DVSA directing board, committees and groups.

The agency’s governance arrangements reflect best practice and give confidence we use our resources efficiently, embedding and using functional standards to support continuous improvement within the agency and to meet our strategic priorities.

Management and control of our risks

Risk management is an integral part of the agency’s work, from how we manage our programmes, services, and our finances, to how we develop our policies and work with the DfT family.

The agency’s Risk Management Framework and Risk Appetite Statements are reviewed and refreshed on an annual basis by the directing board. This assessment will be reviewed taking account of COVID-19 recovery to provide effective risk management to deliver government policies.

The agency is subject to internal and external audits, which ensure that our processes and procedures are robust.

Regular assurance, good governance and efficiency are central to the government’s public bodies transformation programme. For DVSA, this means we are expecting a Cabinet Office Tailored Review this year, which follows a recent Review of the Traffic Commissioner function. We will work with DfT and the review team to support this process and implement any recommendations.

We help you stay safe on Great Britain’s roads by:

• helping you through a lifetime of safe driving
• helping you keep your vehicle safe to drive
• protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles

Responsibilities

We carry out driving tests, approve people to be driving instructors and MOT testers, carry out tests to make sure lorries and buses are safe to drive, carry out roadside checks on drivers and vehicles, and monitor vehicle recalls.

We’re responsible for:

• carrying out theory tests and driving tests for people who want to drive cars, motorcycles, lorries, buses and coaches, and specialist vehicles
• approving people to be driving instructors and motorcycle trainers, and making sure they provide good-quality training
• approving people to be MOT testers, approving the centres they work in, and testing lorries, buses and coaches ourselves
• carrying out roadside checks on commercial drivers and vehicles to make sure they follow safety rules and keep their vehicles safe to drive
• monitoring recalls of vehicles, parts and accessories to make sure that manufacturers fix problems quickly
• approving training courses for qualified drivers, such as Driver Certificate of Professional Competence courses for lorry, bus and coach drivers, and drink-drive rehabilitation courses
• supporting the Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain and the Northern Ireland transport regulator to licence and monitor companies who operate lorries, buses and coaches, and to register local bus services

How the agency is changing

We have big challenges and opportunities ahead. As we build back better from COVID-19, we need to meet our customers’ increased expectations, and harness technology, innovation and new ways of working. We’ll help the UK to lead the world in zero carbon and self-driving vehicles, which will increasingly be used to transport people and goods in safety and comfort.

Our services are grouped under 3 areas:

• driver & rider services – helping you through a lifetime of safe driving
• vehicle services – helping you keep your vehicle safe to drive
• enforcement – protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles

This year we will continue to focus on the needs of our customers by listening and improving each of our service areas.

This work will be progressed through newly formed service improvement teams and informed by customer feedback and research. Customer feedback will be the basis of any change we do, and our ambition is to give customers more of what they need while improving value for money.

Helping you through a lifetime of safe driving

We want our driver services to be focused on what the customer needs to get on the road and stay safe.

We are working hard to reduce waiting times while ensuring that driving and testing standards stay at the heart of what we do. We have already doubled our training capacity and are on track to recruit over 300 additional driving examiners.

To help us reduce the waiting time as soon as possible we are exploring options for working with organisations to increase capacity and help return to pre-pandemic ways of working. We want drivers of the future to be better prepared when they take their test, and we are working with driving instructors to look at ways to improve standards and pass rates. We will use targeted feedback to identify strengths as well as training needs to improve professional competence.

We are also exploring options for transforming the driver services delivery model, including looking at whether there is potential for the practical test to be less dependent on fixed estate and building on current and future technologies.

We are committed to growing our vocational testing capacity and support the Department for Education skills boot camps by increasing availability of both theory and practical tests. To make the best use of extra capacity we will continue to work with industry and training providers to ensure that candidates who are ready to take a test can book tests when and where they wish to take them.

Our work to improve the HGV and PSV driver testing service will continue, encouraging training schools to provide the off-road manoeuvres test so we can focus on increasing the on road test provision. We will restart our delegated examiner training courses whilst balancing the needs to train more of our own vocational examiners.

In addition to chairing the Motorcycle Strategic Focus Group we will continue to work with the motorcycle training industry to better understand their business needs. We will develop and improve our trainer booking system and consider expanding the remit of our Customer Account Manager team. These actions will ensure our service better meets the needs of our business customers.

We are committed to some larger and more ambitious programmes of change for this service.

Driver theory test digital platform

Following the successful launch of our new theory test digital booking platform, we will:

• embed the new service and undertake continuous improvement in response to customer feedback and demands on the service
• continue providing dedicated focus to support the vocational driver training demands from industry and wider initiatives by government
• commission a new project for the next phase of the theory test to explore future delivery models

Driving tests: improving availability and processes

We launched a consultation in January 2022 on proposals designed to encourage and help learner drivers to pass the driving test and keep them safe at the crucial point they drive on their own for the first time.

We wanted our stakeholders to give their views on ideas to:

• encourage learner drivers to be better prepared when they take their car driving test
• reduce the number of car driving test appointments that are wasted
• collect better data about how well driving instructors prepare learner drivers
• give learner drivers better information about driving instructors
• update when and how we carry out the eyesight check at the start of the driving test
• replace paper pass certificates with digital pass certificates

The proposals in the consultation were also designed further to help to reduce the longer than usual waiting times for tests that have resulted from the suspension of testing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Driver services platform

The technology that supports driving test bookings and instructor registration is old and not as flexible as it needs to be. We’re going to replace it with a new driver services platform.

We’ll run a discovery phase to help us understand what users need, what constraints we face, and what opportunities there are to improve things, as well as an alpha phase, to build some working prototypes and then a beta to test out the new solution.

Researching and identifying these things as well as testing out some options will help us develop a clear plan to either transform or replace existing services.

This will help us to achieve our goal of providing great services for all our users - whether they’re learner drivers, driving instructors, training schools or our own colleagues.

Making motorcycling safer

The Road Risk Engagement Forum provides a forum for important road safety stakeholders to share knowledge and experience. The Motorcycle Strategic Focus Group, chaired by DVSA, considers the wider issues affecting motorcyclists, such as safety technology and future connectivity advances and how we embed motorcycling more effectively in our future policies and road safety strategies.

When Parliamentary time allows, we’ll introduce a package of measures to improve the way motorcycle training works, so that newly qualified riders are better prepared for riding on modern roads.

Helping you keep your vehicle safe to drive

MOTs for cars, vans and motorcycles

The light vehicle MOT is delivered through around 23,500 authorised MOT garages – carrying out about 40 million MOTs per year.

For 2022 to 2023, we will continue to focus on improving our service – driving a more modern MOT that best meets the needs of vehicle users.

Some of our areas for improvement for the next year include:

• improving our MOT reminder service – already used by 3.5 million motorists – to make it even easier to use
• continue to invest in technology enabling new ‘connected’ test equipment that can ensure tests are being carried out to the right standard
• use our data better to target those garages that are choosing not to do things right – and where appropriate prosecuting them, to ensure they stay out of MOT testing

Heavy vehicle testing

We deliver the heavy vehicle testing services to vehicle operators in partnership with Authorised Testing Facilities (ATF). Working together on service improvement is the core focus across all our work.

Much of our short-term service improvement work will focus around implementing the recommendations of the Heavy Vehicle Testing Review.

We know from the Heavy Vehicle Testing Review that the current way of scheduling testing hours to ATFs does not always let operators book as far ahead as they might want to. But we also know that flexibility to change things at shorter notice can be important.

We’ve been carrying out some deeper research into this, through focus groups with ATFs and vehicle operators.

In 2022 to 2023 we will work to implement improvement to the service across the review recommendations. This will include:

• starting the move to scheduling our resource in a way that better meets our customer needs.
• making sure our workforce model can grow to best deliver the service
• working with representatives of vehicle operators and ATFs to use a set of service indicators to help improve the service

Commercial Vehicle Services

A key enabler to improving our commercial vehicle services is the transformation of our digital services.

We will deliver a flexible digital platform to support our vehicle testing services that will enhance user experience, provide cleaner real-time test data together with enabling a future range of on-line services to our customers.

DVSA pre-funded account customers, including ATFs, will have access to an intuitive digital service which allows them to manage their accounts online. This will include debit/credit card top-up, along with full visibility and overview of their testing and financial transactions.

The project team delivering this will continue to ensure that the digital service is driven by the needs of our users, and this will include working with pilot ATFs to refine how the services are rolled out.

Vehicle approval transformation

The Vehicle Approvals Transformation (VAT21) project is progressing with the development of a customer -focused service delivery model for all vehicle approval services (Individual vehicle approval, motorcycle single vehicle approval and certificate of initial fitness) whilst also reducing the dependence on the DVSA estate.

Working alongside both internal and external stakeholders, the project is reviewing all aspects of the vehicle approvals services to ensure we meet the needs of our customers and to continue to support UK industry with the continued advances in technology.

Protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles

Enforcement services will develop and deliver a risk and intelligence-based, digital solution to enhance our ability to identify high risk activities and targets across DVSA services. We will continue to support the approved driving instructor (ADI) industry with an improved approach to standards checks, which uses data to deliver quality training and support

We will exploit the opportunities presented by advances in vehicle technology to identify serial and serious non-compliance within the industry and respond appropriately with a proportionate, risk-based targeted approach that promotes positive compliance behaviour, to make Britain’s roads safer.

We will increase our capability and capacity to investigate serious fraud and criminal activity by using advanced technology surveillance equipment and associated data processes for MOT surveillance, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

We understand our customers and will enable them to ‘get it right’ first time, providing the right information in the right place and format, that is accessible for our customers, to assist and promote their compliance. The burden, and cost of enforcement will fall to those who are most serially and seriously non-compliant.

We will support the Traffic Commissioners, to deliver their strategic objectives, including operator licence application turnaround times in a climate of increasing licence applications. We will focus on training to improve the quality of compliance casework support.

We have a number of larger change programmes to:

• deliver an enforcement casework solution to replace the current legacy system
• implement changes to commercial road transport rules which apply to operators, drivers and vehicles engaged on international road transport, as a result of commitments in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
• enhance the existing MOT services to collect data from vehicle manufacturers on vehicles subject to recalls and updates on whether they have been rectified
• trial mobile inspection equipment enabling more mobile/remote enforcement compliance checks
• explore options for expanding DVSA earned recognition, to include opportunities for new schemes across DVSA

Strategic enablers

Our customers

We will enhance our understanding of our customers in order to deliver better services to them. This, in turn, enables us to deliver better strategic outcomes.

We will continue to develop our ambitious customer insight and customer experience programme. This will ensure the services and products we offer meet customer needs, whilst at the same time delivering the agency’s core outcomes of:

• helping you through a lifetime of safe driving
• helping to keep your vehicle safe to drive
• protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles

We will continue to mature and evolve our customer insight and satisfaction function; we will focus on gathering insight from all our customer groups in a timely manner, based around their interactions with us. This insight will help us understand how well we communicate and deliver our existing services as well as identifying areas for improvement.

We will also carry out a number of bespoke agile insight and research studies to understand how customer behaviour is changing and evolving over time. This helps us ensure our services remain relevant, modern and meet customer needs.

Our work to ensure consistency in both our service design and delivery will gather pace as we continue our development of:

• end-to-end journey mapping
• customer personas
• operational performance measures
• a set of customer experience principles

When things do go wrong for our customers, we work hard to respond and put them right as quickly as possible. To help us with that, we will be rolling out a new internal platform for our colleagues to use to improve how we handle customer complaints.

Customer contact centre technology

The COVID-19 pandemic meant additional processes needed to be put in place to ensure our customers were safe when using our services. These necessary processes led to an increase in demand for our contact centre.

DVSA’s Customer Service Centre continues to prioritise the recovery of services, reducing backlogs and improving service performance both over the phone and with email correspondence.

To help meet the increase in demand, we are recruiting additional colleagues through fixed term and temporary contracts. We are also increasing capacity further through a third-party contract to allow us to adapt to fluctuations in demand.

Our current customer contact centre contract ends in June 2022.

In 2022 to 2023 we will

• explore and implement customer contact technologies with an enhanced range of communication channels to enable us to provide more choice for our customers in the future
• explore adding a new web chat channel to enable all our customer groups to engage and interact with us digitally - as this channel grows, we will look at our customers’ needs for chatbots
• explore how the latest technology improves our customer insight and customer satisfaction

These new technologies will help us provide more choice for how our customers contact us, improve our response times and provide better customer service.

Communications and engagement

Safer roads help people go about their lives, their work and their education. They reduce the strain on emergency services and the NHS and enable HGV drivers to move goods efficiently with minimal disruption, helping to keep the economy moving.

So our aim is clear, trusted communication that changes behaviours and makes people safer. We will build all our relationships on mutual understanding and respect, and the views and needs of our customers, colleagues and stakeholders will inform our approach.

In 2022 to 2023 we’ll refresh our communication and engagement plan, so that we can continue to play our part in helping the country to build back better from COVID-19.

We will:

• run campaigns to prompt or change behaviour that will help everyone stay safe on Britain’s roads
• improve colleague engagement through a targeted plan of activities focussing on the following themes, each sponsored by a Director: managing change; wellbeing and supporting colleagues; learning and development; diversity; leadership
• increase engagement in our work by creating opportunities for colleagues to give their views, ensuring they are listened to and acted upon
• continue to build our new intranet and make the information we provide to colleagues more accessible
• celebrate the work of our colleagues by introducing a Colleague Award Scheme
• implement our Educate and Advise plan, providing clear, useful and trusted guidance that helps people through a lifetime of safe driving 
• embed a better framework for meaningful engagement, including rebuilding our relationships with approved driving instructors and other trainers through opportunities to talk to us, give feedback on our plans, and help us develop and shape our services
• develop a stronger customer focus within our culture, including a more mature approach to measuring customer satisfaction

Our people

Skills and learning

Developing skills and continuous learning are vital to our ongoing success. We have restructured our learning and development team to give us a greater focus on identifying learning needs and incorporating quality standards to maintain our reputation for both expertise and quality.

We are reviewing and modernising all of our learning products exploiting the latest technologies to provide the highest quality training to our people.

We are also implementing a newly developed future skills framework (benchmarked against the World Economic Forum) to ensure we prioritise our learning and development investment to the benefit of our customers.

We increased our Strategic Workforce Planning capability late in 2021. We have a small team in place to assist DVSA leaders determine the appropriate resourcing levels and skills requirements to meet future customer needs.

We are committed to identifying talent and developing apprenticeships within the agency. We will continue to build on our award-winning apprenticeship programme supporting colleagues to acquire new knowledge and skills through the completion of nationally recognised qualifications.

We will continue to support our frontline services with the knowledge and skills needed to deliver, continuing to modernise our approach to reflect the society we serve.

We are investing in our frontline leaders to ensure that they have the right skills, knowledge and confidence to be the best that they can be. We will give leaders the right tools through completion of a tailored leadership programme to provide a positive environment for our customers and further embed a leadership culture across the agency.

We will continue to invest in our digital, data and technology professionals to attract and retain the best skills and expertise. We will encourage personal and professional development and career progression through the capability and pay framework to ensure we have the skills required in this field.

Diversity and inclusion

Becoming more diverse and inclusive are key priorities for DVSA.

We are committed to becoming more representative of the communities we serve, so we have set ourselves challenging targets for increasing the numbers of people we employ from 4 underrepresented groups:

• 16 to 24-year-olds
• disabled people
• people from ethnic minority background
• women

In 2022 we will appoint our first board-level champion for diversity to challenge us to do even more to change the colleague profile of our agency.

We will continue to expand our outreach work and engage with more of the government run ‘life chances’ schemes to attract talent from the widest possible pools. We are committed to enabling all our colleagues to have a positive and inclusive experience.

Experience we gained in 2021 with the Civil Service Summer Diversity and the Autism Exchange Internship programmes will provide the foundation for expansion this year. DVSA has active Staff Network Groups who play a vital role in setting our inclusion priorities.

Wellbeing

The wellbeing of our people continues to be at the heart of everything we do, and we will continue to build on the range of wellbeing services we provide. We are proud of the support we have available.

After the last 2 years, we know more than ever how important looking after our people is.

We have a national network of Wellbeing Champions who support both managers and colleagues in promoting and getting the best benefits from the services we offer.

We have a team of fully trained Mental Health First Aiders as a first point of contact and provide training for managers to properly equip them to support their teams.

Throughout the year we will continue to ask our people what more we can do to help them be themselves at work and put into place the support they need.

Protecting our colleagues

During the past 2 years, we continued to ensure the health and safety of our colleagues, customers and everyone we work with has remained key in all of our decision making. We ensured activities and locations were assessed, and risks mitigated to keep people safe. During the next 12 months we will focus, again, on proactive health and safety interventions, and ensure continuous improvements to our safety culture.

The majority of our customers treat our colleagues with respect whilst they are doing their jobs. Where this doesn’t happen, we will show zero tolerance towards any forms of abuse.

In our plans for 2022 to 2023 we will:

• explore the use of digital technologies to support colleagues who are defined as lone and/or frontline workers
• invest in the continued development of a safety culture empowering everyone to challenge unsafe behaviours and activities
• be clear in our communications and expectations around health and safety
• provide systems and procedures that are best in class

Our estate

In the last 2 years we have focused on providing services to the public during a health crisis. In the coming year we look forward to being able to come together again to work collaboratively; something which customers and colleagues alike will benefit from. We are excited to be able to adopt a hybrid approach which means we can deliver the very best outcomes for customers, service users and our colleagues.

To align with government directives, the agency has committed to the introduction of smarter working practices supported by modern, flexible working environments. Smarter working practices will lead to improved space utilisation and a rationalisation of the agency’s administrative accommodation over the next three years. The agency is on track to comply with the government’s policy of introducing smarter working by December 2022.

The agency is also delivering a more flexible and modernised operational working environment for its front line staff. Multi-purpose test centres are being remodelled to facilitate more collaborative working and the sharing of facilities between front line services.

Our data, technology and innovation

We have already done a great deal to harness today’s technology and innovation opportunities, through transforming our services such as the tools our driving examiners use and the supporting technology for our MOT services. We recognise that technology constantly evolves, and we need to ensure digital solutions continue to meet the needs of our customers and people.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, innovation and the opportunities to harness technology is in a period of rapid growth. This has generated an unprecedented demand for IT skills across the UK. To ensure we are able to respond and deliver this year we will:

• work with colleagues to deliver a refreshed Digital, Data, Technology and Security service model, ensuring we deliver agile, cost-effective change across our services
• work with HR to deliver a talent management plan that brings key skills into our organisation and further reduces reliance on third party contracts
• introduce a renewed focus on innovation capability to ensure we are able to respond and use emerging technologies to the benefit of our people and customers
• develop our approach to enterprise architecture so we can ensure we bring together thinking from across the agency and maximise the value of technology across our services

In 2022, the technology industry will continue to contend with pandemic-driven challenges such as supply chain disruptions, hybrid workforce policies, fluctuating IT needs and the increasingly urgent need to address climate change.

Digital and technology

Our services are used by both UK citizens and our colleagues. This year we will:

• engage widely with our customers to create the foundations for the continuous improvement and future modernisation of technology and our externally facing services, such as MOT and Vehicle operator licensing, ensuring the customer is at the heart of our decisions
• deliver digital changes for the requirements of EU mobility legislation
• work with service owners to prioritise changes based on a range assessment of value against our organisational goals
• ensure our services are fully compliant with accessibility regulations, with a commitment to go further where we can

Security

User experience and security are a balance which is key to the actions DVSA takes as an organisation to serve our customers. Key areas of work this year include:

• continuing our work to protect the availably of our services for our customers through monitoring and use of boundary protection to reduce the impact from bots who scrape data to provide more costly service provision to the UK public through independent websites
• enhancements in our defence capabilities through continuous improvements across all our Services and infrastructure ensuring the data we process is securely stored and used
• improvements to our processes to ensure the integrity and timely availability of our data
• establishing new ways to share data that reduce the cyber burden and threat of slowing services down whilst allowing service owners to prioritise enhancements
• supporting our new digital initiatives to assure that the technology meets Government Security Standards
• increase our maturity and adoption of the NIST Cyber Security Framework

Data

At the core of all services described in this plan is data. We recognise the value of data to support our customers and ensure they have the right outcome attributed to them. This year we are continuing to review our foundations for data management and governance, looking to improve the flexibility of our ways of working whilst continuing to meet our legal obligations.

We are supporting service owners to value their data more efficiently and effectively, learning how to use the data to improve the service and understand what additional data could be used to gain further insight into the information we already hold.

We are looking at ways we can better exchange data with other government departments as well as our customers and other external parties who need to access our data to achieve mutual goals.

We are working more closely with other organisations within DfT to improve our customers experience on services that connect across the department.

Our support for new transport technologies

Vehicle technology is changing rapidly – and DVSA will have a key role in ensuring that Britain’s roads can get safer through this process, whilst helping create the environment where innovative UK industry can flourish.

DVSA will work alongside the joint Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and DfT’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), as well as working with sister agencies and directly with industry to do this.

Key areas of work for 2022 to 2023 will be:

• providing input to vehicle approval standards with regard to driving standards – ‘the autonomous highway code’
• using our Individual Vehicle Approval scheme to support early work on getting autonomous vehicles on the road for trial schemes – working directly with UK innovators in doing this
• developing future visions for how in-service compliance and driving services need to change and develop – in particular as partially or wholly autonomous vehicles come into service. This will include commissioning research work to better understand the factors at play – including how the technologies will age and what failure modes there are
• continuing to develop all of our services to better reflect more immediate changes to vehicle technology – ensuring that the MOT, driving test and other services are right for the vehicles available now

Our environmental sustainability

We’re working towards achieving net zero by 2040. This means that the carbon we emit into the atmosphere will be balanced by the amount of carbon we remove from it.

To do this we are:

• working with our partners and suppliers, using our position to align our supply-chain to also achieve this goal
• making carbon emission reduction and becoming net zero are part of decision-making processes

This year we will:

• finish a pilot project at Burton-on-Trent driving test centre to decarbonise the building – this will see us replace gas heating with electric via air source heat pump technology, and install energy efficiency and ventilation measures
• carry out similar decarbonisation measures at 6 more sites using grant funding from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme 3 - the sites make up 1.5% of our gas emissions
• continue to reduce carbon emissions from our travel (which makes up half of all our emissions) by setting out a new travel policy for our colleagues
• increase our on-site renewables electricity generation by installing 60kWp roof-mounted solar panels
• continue working towards the target to have 100% zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2027 (we’ve already achieved our commitment for 25% of our fleet to be ultra-low emission vehicles by 2022)

As part of our net zero (waste) journey, we will deliver measures to significantly reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill and increase waste recycling rates.

Later in 2022, we will publish our new sustainable development strategy setting out our longer-term plans.

Our finances and efficiency

Finance

We will ensure that our financial management enables the delivery of excellent services for our customers with a focus on financial sustainability and value for money.

We have made good progress against our efficiency plan delivering savings through rationalisation of our estate; and better use of resources; we have prioritised our investments through our Investment and Change Committee to support projects deliver benefits to our customers and efficiency for DVSA. Work has continued to ensure that our fees will reflect the cost of delivering an excellent service that meets the needs of our customers.

We delivered enhanced financial reporting that supports our colleagues with better financial information to help them manage our resources effectively and we have developed a strategic modelling capability to support longer term financial sustainability.

We will build on this in 2022 to 2023 by:

• delivering the committed efficiency savings plan
• progressing a fees strategy to ensure that the requirement to match our fees with the costs of delivering an excellent service are met
• ensuring a benefits led investment programme
• supporting our people to deliver better financial forecasting
• developing our reporting to support service-based decision making
• ensuring we comply with best practice functional standards which provides a stable basis for assurance, risk management and capability improvement

Shared services strategy

In March 2021, the Cabinet Office published the new Shared Services Strategy for Government, working to the following 3 overarching objectives:

• meeting end-user needs, promoting excellence and convenience for both staff and managers
• delivering value and efficiency, including by separating technology from service centres, and including all transactional services
• convergence around processes and data, including the consolidation and modernisation of technology platforms, while maintaining choice for departments

The DfT Future of Shared Services programme aims to improve user experience across our HR, finance and commercial processes, and to provide a more responsive and flexible system for all our day-to-day transactions.

We’re scheduled to be the first in the DfT group to migrate to the new system. The programme has delivered a Learning Management System in January 2021 and a new travel and expenses system in December 2021 ahead of a full migration.

The vision is to move to the Government Shared Services (GSS) cluster model in line with the Cabinet Office strategy.

Commercial delivery

The Commercial Team will continue to drive consistency in the planning, management and execution of our commercial activities, ensuring contracts and relationships with suppliers realise value for money and result in the delivery of high-quality services to our customers.

To deliver successful outcomes, we will:

• achieve maximum value from every commercial relationship to support our strategic plan
• secure a 3% commercial saving on 2022 to 2023 contract values, delivering our services more efficiently and improving our customers’ experience
• develop and deliver an action plan to support the Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework standards as part of our wider work on commercial culture and continuous improvement
• continue to buy more sustainable and efficient products and services with the aim of achieving the best long-term, overall value for money for society
• continue to support social value through our commercial arrangements

Plans for 2022 to 2023

Our performance targets for the year set out our priorities for recovery and our major projects for 2022 to 2023.

During this year, we will develop measures that better reflect our customers’ expectations of our services. These will help us track our progress towards the delivery of our new 3-year strategic plan and set the right foundations as we work towards our 10-year vision.

Helping you through a lifetime of safe driving

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
To recover our services, so waiting times for car practical driving tests are 9 weeks or less	By December 2022
Car practical test candidates satisfied with the service they receive from DVSA	70%
Theory test candidates satisfied with the service they receive from DVSA	70%
Candidates will be offered a theory test appointment within 28 calendar days of booking, at their preferred test centre within the service period	95%
Vocational practical test waiting times at 3 weeks or less	By December 2022

Helping you keep your vehicle safe to drive

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
Authorised testing facilities satisfied with the service they receive from DVSA	85%
Operators satisfied with the service they receive from DVSA	80%
MOT centres satisfied with the service they receive from DVSA	85%

Protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
Risk based targeted approach to detect serious roadworthiness defects and traffic offences	28,000
Maintain the number of MOT cases where we act upon the most serious fraud, dishonesty and negligence and increase by 10% the number of prosecution cases brought from these investigations	From the 2021 to 2022 baseline
In support of the Traffic Commissioners strategic objectives, we will process HGV operator licence applications in an average of 35 working days or fewer	By March 2023

Our customers

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
We will implement improvements to our telephony platform, enabling a more flexible operating model for our customer service centre and delivering an improved service to our customers	By March 2023
Call handling times	50% of calls handled within 120 seconds
Achieve the Customer Contact Association Global Standard 7 accreditation for our contact centre	By March 2023

Our people

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
During 2022 to 2023 we will engage all colleagues in 2-way conversations about the future of DVSA and making it a great place to work	Year on year, improvement in the Civil Service People Survey PERMA engagement index score across DVSA throughout the period of our 3-year strategic plan, from our 2021 baseline
Continue to increase the percentage of our people from underrepresented groups: • 16 to 24-year-olds • disabled people • people from ethnic minority background • women	From the 2021 to 2022 baseline
Continue to support our colleagues to ensure non-COVID-19 sickness absence remains below pre-pandemic levels (as at February 2020)	Below 9.33 days per FTE by March 2023

Sustainability

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
DVSA will contribute towards the government’s aim of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 through the 2021 to 2025 Greening Government Commitments	Second year contribution to governments Greening Government Commitments

Our finances

Measure	Target for 2022 to 2023
Deliver against our efficiency plan	£11 million

Cross-government commitments

DfT/DVSA targets	2022 to 2023
Freedom of Information Act - provide a response within 20 working days	90%
Parliamentary questions - provide a response by the due date	100%
Ministerial correspondence - provide a response within agreed timescales	95%
Official correspondence - provide a response within 20 working days	80%
Prompt payments - payment of invoices within 5 working days	80%

Annex A

Financial forecast	Business plan 2022 to 2023 (£’000)
Statutory fee income	(384,433)
Non-statutory income	(17,457)
Total income	(401,890)
Staff costs [footnote 1]	217,696
IT costs	44,762
Accommodation costs	38,287
Theory test charges	30,167
Depreciation	43,669
Other non-pay costs	64,791
Total expenditure	439,372
Net operating deficit	37,482
Net interest	8,190
Net deficit	45,672

Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) as voted in Parliament ^{[footnote 2]}

Resource DEL [footnote 3]	2,002
Annually Managed Expenditure (AME)	(3,836)
Total Resource and AME	(1,834)
Capital DEL	47,198

Income is displayed as a negative number (in brackets) and expenditure as a positive

1. Staff costs have been amended to reflect uplift in NI contributions and Pay award (due August 2022) to be held with DfT and released at Supplementary Estimate ↩

2. Awaiting official delegation of control total from DfT ↩

3. Non-ringfenced RDEL only ↩