Newslink April

Comment
Dear Roderic Arthur Came,
I’m Loveday Ryder, and I became the
Chief Executive of the Driver and
Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) in
January 2021.....
Dear Loveday...
MSA Member Roderic Arthur
Came received a nice letter
from the new boss at the
DVSA a few weeks ago, and
he was so touched by its
contents he thought he’d
write back.
Thanks for your kind introduction and
telling me about yourself, and welcome
to running what can be a bit of a
poisoned chalice, that is the Driving
Standards part of the DVSA.
I have been an ADI for 40 years (ADI
no. 68677) after spending 12 years of
my police service as a member of the
Traffic Division.
I appreciate only too well the problems
facing DVSA with the restart of driving
tests, both theory and practical, but as
you will be aware, the lack of action by
DVSA to prepare for this eventuality is
far from satisfactory.
You say in your introductory letter to
me that ‘we’ve already run a successful
recruitment campaign for driving
examiners. We received over 5,000
applications and are now in the process
of reviewing these applications and
setting up interviews.’
This action should have been taken
months ago, as soon as it was clear that
the pandemic restrictions were going to
create a huge backlog of L-tests. It
should not have been left until the
imminent recommencement of practical
22
NEWSLINK n APRIL 2021