HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA; ) is the organisation of the
British government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
responsible for maintaining a database of drivers in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
and a database of vehicles for the entire
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. Its counterpart for drivers in
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
is the Driver and Vehicle Agency. The agency issues driving licences, organises collection of vehicle excise duty (also known as '' road tax'' and ''road fund licence'') and sells personalised registrations. The DVLA is an
executive agency An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or No ...
of the Department for Transport. The current Chief Executive of the agency is Julie (Karen) Lennard. The DVLA is based in
Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...
,
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
, with a prominent 16-storey building in Clase and offices in Swansea Vale. It was previously known as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre. The agency previously had a network of 39 offices around Great Britain, known as the Local Office Network, where users could attend to apply for licences and transact other business, but throughout the course of 2013, the local offices were gradually closed down, and all had been closed by December 2013. The agency's work is consequently fully centralised in Swansea, with the majority of users having to transact remotely – by post or (for some transactions) by phone. DVLA introduced Electronic Vehicle Licensing in 2004, allowing customers to pay vehicle excise duty online and by telephone. However, customers still have the option to tax their vehicles via the
Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
. A seven-year contract enabling the Post Office to continue to process car tax applications was agreed in November 2012, with the option of a three-year extension.


History

Originally, vehicle registration was the responsibility of County Borough and County councils throughout Great Britain, a system created by the Motor Car Act 1903. In 1968 a centralised licensing system was set up at a new Swansea Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre, taking over licences issued from County/Borough councils. A new purpose built centre was then built on the site of the old Clase Farm on Longview Road, Swansea in 1969. In April 1990, the Licensing Centre was renamed the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, becoming an executive agency of the Department for Transport.


British Forces Germany civilian vehicles

Civilian vehicles used in
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
by members of British Forces Germany or their families are registered with the DVLA on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.


Diplomatic and consular vehicles

Official diplomatic and consular vehicles are registered with the DVLA on behalf of the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...
.


DVLA database

The vehicle register held by DVLA is used in many ways. For example, by the DVLA itself to identify untaxed vehicles, and by outside agencies to identify keepers of cars entering central
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
who have not paid the congestion charge, or who exceed speed limits on a road that has speed cameras by matching the cars to their keepers utilising the DVLA database. The current DVLA vehicle register was built by EDS under a £5 million contract signed in 1996, with a planned implementation date in October 1998, though actual implementation was delayed by a year. It uses a client–server architecture and uses the
vehicle identification number A vehicle identification number (VIN; also called a chassis number or frame number) is a unique code, including a serial number, used by the automotive industry to identify individual motor vehicles, towed vehicles, motorcycles, scooters a ...
, rather than the registration plate, as the primary key to track vehicles, eliminating the possibility of having multiple registrations for a single vehicle. The Vehicle Identity Check (VIC) was introduced to help reduce vehicle crime. It was intended to deter criminals from disguising stolen cars with the identity of written off or scrapped vehicles, however this scheme was abandoned in October 2015. Under the scheme, when an insurance company wrote off a car it would notify the DVLA. This notification would set a "VIC marker" on the vehicle record on the DVLA database. An identity check might then be required before the vehicle tax could be renewed or before any amendments could be made to the logbook. DVLA database records are used by commercial vehicle check companies to offer a comprehensive individual car check to prospective purchasers. However, the accuracy of the data held remains a continuing problem. Anyone can request information from the database if they purport to have just cause to need it, for a fee of £2.50. The database of drivers, developed in the late 1980s, holds details of some 42 million driving licence holders in the UK. It is used to produce driving licences and to assist bodies such as the
Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is an executive agency of the United Kingdom, UK Department for Transport (DfT). It carries out driving tests, approves people to be driving instructors and MOT testers, carries out tests to make ...
, police and courts in the enforcement of legislation concerning driving entitlements and road safety. The DVLA revealed in December 2012 that it had temporarily banned 294 public bodies, including local councils and police forces, for not using their access to the database correctly between 2006 and 2012. A further 38 bodies were banned permanently during the period. Between 2002 and 2015 it is estimated the DVLA spent £500 million on information technology from
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
.


Employment

Staff of the DVLA are predominantly female whereas other parts of the Department for Transport are predominantly male. Starting salaries as of 2008 were just over £12,500. In November 2007, a Public Accounts Committee report criticised the "amazingly high" levels of
sick leave Sick leave (or paid sick days or sick pay) is paid time off from work that workers can use to stay home to address their health needs without losing pay. It differs from paid vacation time or time off work to deal with personal matters, because ...
among staff at the DVLA, where employees took an average of three weeks per year of sick leave. The report said overall sickness leave at the Department for Transport and its seven agencies averaged 10.4 working days per full-time employee in 2005, which they calculated as costing taxpayers £24 million. While sick leave rates at the department itself and four of its agencies were below average, at the DVLA and DSA – which together employ more than 50% of all department staff – they were "significantly higher". Committee chairman Edward Leigh said it was surprising the agencies could "function adequately". In 2008 DVLA staff went on a one-day strike over pay inequality arguing they should receive similar salaries to other employees of the Department for Transport. The most recent level of sickness absence for 2012/13 was 6.7 days.


Controversies


Missing documents

In 2006, 120,000 to 130,000 vehicle registration certificates went missing. A BBC investigation in 2010 found that vehicles worth £13 million had been stolen using the documents in the 18 months preceding the investigation. Around ten cars are found each week to have forged log books and police said it would be decades before they were all recovered.


DVLA letter bombs

On 7 February 2007, a
letter bomb A letter bomb is an explosive device sent via the postal service, and designed with the intention to injure or kill the recipient when opened. They have been used in terrorist attacks such as those of the Unabomber. Some countries have agenc ...
was sent to the DVLA in Swansea and injured four people. It is suspected that this is part of a group of letter bombs sent to other organisations that deal with the administration of motoring charges and offences, such as Capita in central London, which was targeted a few days earlier. Miles Cooper, aged 27, a school caretaker, was arrested on 19 February 2007, and charged on 22 February. The DVLA have since installed X-ray machines in all post opening areas to reduce the effectiveness of any further attacks.


Wrong confidential records on surveys

In December 2007, it was revealed that while sending out surveys to 1,215 drivers, the DVLA sent out confidential details, but to the wrong owners. The error occurred during the sending out of routine surveys, and was not discovered until members of the public contacted the DVLA to notify them of the error.


Lost entitlements

In 2009 BBC's '' Watchdog'' reported that entitlements, specifically the entitlement to drive a motorcycle, were being lost from reissued driving licences. In 2005 the same programme highlighted drivers who had lost entitlements to drive heavy goods vehicles in a similar way.


Sale of details

In 2010 it was revealed the DVLA had sold drivers' details from the database to certain private parking enforcement companies run by individuals with criminal records. The DVLA sells details to companies for £2.50 per record, but it was found the agency had sold some of these to a business which had been previously fined for unfair business practices.


Complaints resolution

The DVLA handled 12,775 complaints in the year 2015/16, of which it failed to resolve 14.9% at first contact. Overall complaints for that year were down by 6.5%. The DVLA customer service excellence standard was retained. No details were provided on how this was measured. Customer satisfaction levels varied between 76% and 97% in the four categories surveyed; vehicle registration, driver licence renewal, vehicle taxation, driver medical transactions. No data was provided in respect of complaints about the SORN scheme or other fines levied.


Data Processing

On 13 June 2022, the Information Commissioner published a
Opinion
in which he stated the DVLA had been releasing the details of vehicle keepers to parking companies under the wrong ground. The DVLA had been releasing these under Article 6(1)(c) UK GDPR (legal duty) but the ICO advised the DVLA should have relied on Article 6(1)(e) (public task). The significance of this is that, unlike Article 6(1)(c), Article 6(1)(e) includes a right to object to this processing, as set out in Article 21. However, the Information Commissioner also stated the DVLA can refuse objections under Article 21 because they are processing the information "for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims". The Information Commissioner's Office'
website
states: "retrospectively switching lawful basis is likely to be inherently unfair to the individual and lead to breaches of accountability and transparency requirements".


Unacceptable Levels of Service

On 17 March 2023, a report by the Public Accounts Committee was published which was critical of the DVLA. Three million paper applications for driving licences involving fitness to drive resulted in long delays. This resulted in some people losing their jobs; others lost income and became isolated and depressed. This was made worse by difficulties making contact with the DVLA. The committee found that between April 2020 and March 2022 around 60 million calls about driving licences went unanswered, 94% of the total the DVLA receive.


In popular culture

The DVLC in Swansea is regularly referred to in the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
political
sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...
'' Yes Minister'', usually as a remote and unfavourable location. Bernard Woolley is regularly threatened with reassignment there. In the episode "Big Brother", Jim Hacker is scheduled to give an address there.


See also

*
Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is an executive agency of the United Kingdom, UK Department for Transport (DfT). It carries out driving tests, approves people to be driving instructors and MOT testers, carries out tests to make ...
* Driver and Vehicle Agency


References


External links

* {{Authority control 1965 establishments in the United Kingdom Databases in the United Kingdom Department for Transport Driving in the United Kingdom Executive agencies of the United Kingdom government Government agencies established in 1965 Motor vehicle registration agencies Organisations based in Swansea Road transport in the United Kingdom