Minister announces review of service for driving tests

An independent review of the driver-testing service has been announced by the Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Bobby Molloy. It follows what he described as "fair and challenging questions" raised about the service in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell.

Mr Molloy said that "in the interests of our customers, I intend that these [questions] will now be addressed squarely and comprehensively." His announcement has been welcomed by IMPACT, the union which represents driver-testers.

The report, "The Driver-Testing Service", followed a value-for-money examination of the service by the Comptroller and Auditor General's office. It established that in 1998, 71 per cent of applicants passed the test in Sligo, while in Gorey, Co Wexford, the figure was 47 per cent. Nationally, the average pass rate in 1998 was 57 per cent, with more would-be drivers passing in the west and south-west than in the east.

The figures lead Mr Purcell to conclude "the evidence suggests that a uniform standard of driving test is not being applied by the Department [of the Environment and Local Government]".

Driving tests are carried out by over 100 Department employees at 49 centres throughout the State. Almost 150,000 tests were carried out in 1998.

The report also established that this "very considerable variation" in pass rates was not random. The pattern was also evident from year to year and within regions. "Some individual testers consistently have pass rates significantly different from the average of their colleagues," it said, and concluded that the Department should eliminate "such systematic difference".

It also found that while the number of applications for tests had risen from 100,000 in 1995 to 150,000 in 1998 "the Department was slow to increase the supply of driving tests". This meant that by the end of 1998 there were "around 87,000" people on the waiting list.

The average waiting time was 30 weeks.

It was also found that the Department was not achieving the target level of productivity from testers and that it relied heavily on overtime.

And while the cost of providing the service per test increased from £31 in 1995 to £37.60 in 1998, ". . . the level of efficiency achieved by the Department in providing the service fell substantially in the period".

It proposed that a change in existing arrangements for headquartering driver-testers and for rotating them between test centres would lead to more efficiency and greater economy. It would "reduce the cost of travel and subsistence payments significantly, increase the number of tests carried out and reduce waiting times in the centres with the longest waiting lists."

It also proposed that applicant fees be increased, as just 78 per cent of the cost of providing the service is currently covered by them, despite a Department policy of recovering full costs involved.