General Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Public and Commercial Services union, Mark Serwotka says decisions made by managers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has led to a “catastrophic” processing backlog of 1.4 million cases.
Mr Serwotka told Parliament’s Transport Committee other members of the Public Service were “were tearing their hair out” over the DVLA.
“In 21 years [in this role], I have never encountered the level of incompetence and mismanagement that is on display at the DVLA in Swansea,” Mr Serwotka said.
“The tragedy is not just that the public are suffering,” he said.
“Our members, many of whom are quite lowly paid and very stressed at work, are bearing the brunt of this.”
Mr Serwotka said there had been 643 COVID-19 cases and one fatality at the DVLA during the course of the pandemic and there were ongoing serious risks to staff health.
Chair of the union’s DVLA Branch, Sarah Evans said staff were worried because they could see cases rising on site, but they had been told not to complain.
“Our work site is very different because there is a high volume of staff in a small area,” Ms Evans told the committee.
“The union wants more staff to be able to work from home to be able to allow for better social distancing in the offices and to allow those isolating at home to still continue to be productive,” she said.
Ms Evans said she had been told remote working was impossible because of security issues “but we know there can’t be a security issue in the DVLA that’s not the same in the rest of the Civil Service”.
“Weeks and weeks of productivity have been lost by stopping staff working from home,” the Chair said.
“There’s no doubt at all that we would not be in situation we are in… had we been given the capability,” she said.
Chief Executive of the DVLA, Julie Leonard told the committee it was advisable for people to do their licence applications online where possible and paper documentation could take six to 10 weeks, whereas online processing could be sorted “in days”.
“We have taken staff safety incredibly seriously at every point in this,” Ms Leonard said.
“Had it been easy to have more people working at home, we would have done it,” she said.
London, 23 July 2021
