The Times has published an undercover investigation into DVLA, where backlogs mean people are having to wait months to get driving tests, and discovered that hundreds of employees have done no work on full pay for significant periods during the past two years as managers boast of watching Netflix at the public’s expense.
Most of the Government agency’s 6,200 staff were sent home during the first lockdown but 3,400 of them were put on paid special leave without having to work at all, figures show.
There were still almost 2,000 staff on paid special leave months later, with no expectation that they would do any work even from home. In nine of the past 24 months there have been more than 500 staff officially not working, either on paid special leave or on strike.
An undercover Times reporter worked at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency last month as millions of drivers have been affected by record backlogs in licence applications and renewals.
Managers told of spending working days in bed watching TV box sets. Staff said they were demoralised as colleagues on paid special leave who claimed to be too vulnerable to come to the office were “not doing any work yet they are out and about mingling with others and going on holiday”.
The DVLA has been in crisis as it receives 60,000 pieces of post a day but there have not been enough civil servants on site to open and process drivers’ documents quickly enough.
Amid pressure from hardline trade unionists, limits on numbers of staff at the agency’s offices have remained in place throughout the pandemic, despite them being stricter than government and public health guidance.
Special paid leave has been granted to DVLA staff who reported health conditions that classed them as being too vulnerable to be on site, said they were isolating because of Covid contacts or had caring responsibilities, while also being unable to work from home.
Many DVLA staff have not been able to work properly, or at all, from home throughout the pandemic as they are not allowed remote access to work systems holding licence holders’ personal data.
Even those civil servants on site have had periods of only having to work either a four-day week or on a week-on, week-off rota to prevent them from “burning out”.
The backlogs at the agency have meant some people who rely on their cars for work have been unable to drive for more than a year. Lorry drivers have also been prevented from helping to deliver food and petrol during critical periods of driver shortages.
Worth reading in full.
If you can’t get past the Times‘ paywall, you can read a version of this story on MailOnline here.
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To Mark Steyn ———-Thankyou mate. I appreciate everything you did on GB news. You are one of the few Investigative journalists left that goes where the story takes you, and for that you are to be REMOVED. ——-I read your “Disgrace to the Profession” book on the pseudo scientific fraud called Climate Change some years ago. Hold your head up high mate and if I could afford it, I would pay your alleged 40 thousand quid fine myself.
Katie Hopkins (love her or hate her), has an interesting, insider take her a week old, 10 minute YouTube monologue on the GB News/Mark Steyn affair.
The Mark Steyn business reminds me a bit of Steven Crowder and The Daily Wire… It seems there’s a bit of a bloodbath going on in the right wing commentariat at the moment.
Nothing to do with Ofcom but I read that James O’Keefe has been ousted from Project Veritas after his Pfizer sting video. It seems the establishment is pushing back on anyone who tells the truth or who exposes the malfeasance and corruption at high levels
The discussion included capital punishment snd it was observed that the state killed people through military action so in-principle objections to the state killing people was diluted thereby.
of more relevance is state authorised killing its own citizens or peaceable residents. Examples include firearms police officers executing suspects (eg a Brazilian plumber in London); abortions without due medical process as required by law and failing to investigate particular crimes for political reasons (eg drug pushing and grooming gangs).
more significant numbers of our fellow citizens die because the state releases proven dangerous men (mainly men) before their given sentences have been served in the knowledge that a large number will reoffend to deadly effect. This is state authorised killing in a scale far in excess of potential capital offences deaths.
also discussed was euthanasia. An American academic has proposed the state should make this lawful then encourage it to reduce the cost of elderly care. It would not be long before the age was reduced and some relatives put pressure on older family members to get out of their lives.
we should not go down that route but if we were ever to do so I propose that the age should be ten years younger for current snd former MPs, Councillors and those sentenced to more than (say) five years imprisonment at any time, the better to get rid of tge least valued first.
Sadly far too many abortions are like this, probably the vast majority. If the state are going to legislate for the killing of children (and I believe they absolutely shouldn’t) they should at least police it rigorously so these abuses don’t happen.
I suspect that this is where we are headed with euthanasia, and the pressure is only likely to intensify with the demographic crisis of an ageing population as a result of all those children being killed (mostly without due process). Dark times indeed for the most vulnerable.