National Audit Office Report Exposes Government Failure on Driving Test Crisis

The National Audit Office’s damning report on car driving test waiting times reveals a system in crisis, with learner drivers waiting an average of 22 weeks for a test – compared to just 5 weeks pre-pandemic. According to DVSA, the crisis won’t be resolved until November 2027 – nearly five years after the pandemic ended.

The ADINJC is the leading association of driving instructors in the UK. Its Conference and Expo held annually in the Midlands was attended by over 1300 driving instructors in 2025, as well as representatives from the DVSA and its Chief Executive.

The role of the ADINJC is to represent its membership in dealings with the DVSA, our regulatory body, but also to provide leadership to the driver training industry in areas such as road safety; member wellbeing; professional development; and general support.

The Scale of Failure

  • Learners are paying up to £500 to third-party resellers for tests that should cost £62
  • 327,000 tests were swapped in 2024 – up from 39,000 in 2019 – indicating massive system abuse
  • Efforts to reduce abuse of the test booking system have failed, not least in part to a five-fold increase in web traffic between September 2024 and September 2025*

Impact on Driving Instructors

Our members report devastating impacts:
  • 52% of instructors report learners taking extended breaks from lessons due to long waits
  • 65% cite financial constraints forcing learners to pause their training
  • DVSA has failed in its oversight duties, with 7% of instructors known to be substandard receiving no follow-up assessment

DVSA’s Recruitment Crisis

Despite claims of major recruitment drives, DVSA has achieved minimal progress:
  • Recruitment campaigns have consistently failed – only 83 additional FTE examiners between February 2021 and September 2025
  • 14% examiner attrition rate – double the civil service average
  • Examiners are underpaid, with each test delivered at a £24 loss – The test fee hasn’t increased since 2009 despite costs rising significantly

Government Response: Too Little, Too Late

The recently announced measures are wholly inadequate:
  • Removing instructor booking rights punishes legitimate businesses for DVSA’s enforcement failures
  • The new booking system won’t arrive until 2026-2030 at a cost of £181 million
  • Ministry of Defence providing just 36 examiners one day per week is a drop in the ocean

Demand Forecasting Failures

DVSA failed to anticipate obvious demand increases:
  • 43% increase in theory test passes between 2019-20 and 2024-25
  • 680,000 people with valid theory certificates unable to book tests

ADINJC Urgent Recommendations

  1. Immediate action on examiner pay and conditions – instructors are no longer choosing to retrain as examiners due to the disparity in potential earnings post-Covid.
  2. Emergency capacity measures – Two more years of crisis is unacceptable. What else can be done? MOD Examiners could have been deployed three years ago, what’s being held back now?
  3. Fee increase now – The service operates at a £44 million annual deficit while failing to deliver a basic public service.
  4. Proper enforcement – Tackle the 11,600 business accounts before restricting legitimate operators.
  5. A new booking system must be developed and implemented as soon as possible. Along with poor recruitment and forecasting strategies, outdated tech and infrastructure is at the heart of the crisis.

After five years of crisis, the government is tinkering at the margins while instructors and learners bear the cost. This is a public service that charges for a product it cannot deliver, forcing citizens into a black market for basic access. The NAO report makes clear that DfT has been lax in its oversight of DVSA, and we would urge the Secretary of State to consider the above points as a matter of urgency.

Stewart Lochrie, Chairman
ADI National Joint Council (ADINJC)
17/12/2025

*Editor’s Note – This article has been corrected to remove the following text “Bot activity has increased five-fold in one year, blocking legitimate users” and updated to “Efforts to reduce abuse of the test booking system have failed, not least in part to a five-fold increase in web traffic between September 2024 and September 2025”.

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