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.
Discussion
Comments
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Moreover, the number of utterly useless managers in the civil service who’s job it seems is to simply change things for the sake of changing it must be addressed.
Civil servants are mandated to spend two and a half hours attending ‘Race and Equality’ lectures on an increasing number of times per year. This is tax payer funded indoctrination and openly discriminates and demonises white heterosexual men.
Gosh, what a massive surprise! Civil servants thinking that they are more important than the public who pay their wages. When has that ever happened before? And, naturally, their Union is complicit with this theft.
And unlike the productive part of the economy where furlough with 80% of wages covered these illegitimate offspring are doing sweet FA on 100%. 🤬🤬🤬
“Private sector small businesses Bad , Public sector Good ,
But…..Stakeholder Corporates and Governments running everything… Better!
Welcome to “Stakeholder Capitalist World Government” Baaa!
Johnson is so very obviously not a Conservative …but what is he?
“Destroyer of Worlds”?
He’s someone who wants lots of money and lots of sex -but with mature females, unusually for a British politician – and knows that the puppet masters have enough evidence to get him convicted of financial criminality.
Good stuff: so, as promised, WFH has zero effect on productivity!
That depends how useless they were before!
Exactly the same as the Probate Office. All WFH but not actually doing anything. Took them 6 months just to send some forms out, and then they only arrived after the MP got on the case. Shocking service.
Might be worth somebody looking at other branches of government. You’ll be amazed how much time they spend doing something other than what they are supposed to be doing, and how many full-time officers and support workers there are pushing their particular activist agenda.
Do they all have a plethora of EDI Managers? I expect they do.
This all sounds pretty normal for the DVLA.
DWP may be another agency in need of the same examination. My wife has been trying to make up some missing contribution years, initial telephone converstion stated the forms would arrive in 6-8 weeks. Now at 14 weeks, telephoned after 8 weeks and the response by the CS Agent is to send another email to the relevant department. Telephone after a few more weeks and am told that she is still in the 6-8 week window which apparently was restarted again with the second telephone call. Seems there is no method to expedite a failed response to the first request, just go back to start. The complaints telephone number on the DWP website goes to some other unrelated department, have sent a letter, await a non responsive reply.
But you should be thoroughly grateful that they have established world class processes to answer telephone calls and take complaints.
In the Public Sector in 2022, process trumps outcome seemingly every time; I am sure that cannot be “true” , but equally sure the perception that it is “true” is very prevalent.
My younger son works at a well-known high street store and had to ring in sick last Sunday and when he returned to work he was surprised to find out that he would be paid for the lost shift, as he has never been paid for sickness absences in the 15 years that he has worked there.
When he enquired why, he was told that it was a new company policy that workers would be paid for 1 (ONE) shift per year for sickness absence so he will not be paid for a absence through sickness again for another 12 months.
PS: His attendance record is excellent; obviously the same cannot be said of some DVLA employees; indeed among a hell of a lot of the WFH brigade.
I suggest that we each email our respective MPs with a link to this article. Referring also to the numerous letters that have appeared virtually every week in the Daily Telegraph.
And we ask questions like:
This is not intended to be a complete list.
People’s lives are being wrecked by this incompetence and malice. ALL of the staff of the DVLA must be forced to attend two week courses at their expense to learn that they are paid to serve the public, not the other way round.
Perhaps some of those affected should be invited and paid full expenses and fees from the pockets of those in the DVLA to explain what their incompetence has done to them.
Has transport minister Grant Shapps had anything to say about this over the past two years? I don’t recall it.
I know a computer contractor who was working at DoT Headquarters last year. He was documenting procedures for computer systems.
In the year before he had been brought in, the DoT team on the job had created one document (which had not been completed). In the two months he was there he completed eight. Then they sacked him on the spot for ‘inappropriate language’. He had used the word ‘masculine’ to describe a statement…..
The public sector – don’t you just love it?
One point that doesn’t seem to have attracted too much attention in these comments is the difficult working conditions for those staff who have actually remained at their desks.
Whilst the DVLA’s management and the trade unions are no doubt having a lovely time working from home, just think for a moment about those (relatively junior) staff who still have have had to come into the office, wear masks throughout their entire shifts, sit shivvering because various “experts” have recommended leaving the windows open throughout the winter, and cover the roles of their absent colleagues.
In a similar vein, my wife will shortly be leaving her job at our local hospital trust because she, along with a hard-core of other adminstrative staff, have been working in pretty awful conditions to facilitate more senior members of staff getting to spend more time on their Peletons.
The DVLA has always been pretty crap, but it’s not suprising that the staff are getting a bit uppity at the moment.
The Times undercover journalists have really excelled themselves with this ultra low hanging DVLA fruit. ‘Lazy public servants watch Netflix from home’ soaraway, phew what a scorcher scoop.
Guess the in-depth, no holds barred, deep dive into the Roche / Gates / GAVI / WHO crime cartel will have to wait until the shockwaves stop reverberating around the world from this parish magazine ‘divide and rule’ diversion.
Pitiful stuff.
Let’s cut out the middleman and ship newspapers direct to fish and chip shops.
Booster anyone?
Don’t forget Schwab and the WEF…
Couldn’t agree more, OPP.
Let’s expose lazy public servants and then swap stories about them and why we can’t stand them. Top effort from The Times. Bravo – and thanks for sharing.
Eagerly await the exposure of corporate criminality on a global scale, aided and abetted by government ministers using public funds.
Golly, gee! I sure hope this latest motoring ballache doesn’t mean fewer people are able/willing to use their cars on the road. Good job fuel is heading toward the GDP of a pacific island per litre – it means even if we wanted to drive, we can’t afford to. The loss of personal motorised transport is better for the Second Great Leap Forward, and so much less stress for us lowly worker drones. Another Win/Win for the global Gretagov.
Nice work if you can’t get it….
Off topic but according to the Guardian they have run out of coffins in Hong Kong due to the non killer virus. They have to keep pedalling their fear porn and I bet if there is a shortage of coffins it’s due to supply chain issues.
This reminds me again of the 1970s. Plenty of this kind of thing was going on within nationalised industries.
When I started work in the 1970s having a job within the civil service was known for being an easy ride. We’ve clearly gone full circle.
DVLA? WFH? Sweet FA? WTF!
What a coincidence.
Just got back from a visit to the local council – had to drop some documents in for my mother-in-law who is disabled – I haven’t been to the council in years and usually the place is packed and busy (which is why I avoid it) – today though it was practically empty with just one person behind the reception desk. I asked where a ‘certain department‘ was in the building and explained that I just had to drop a few documents off – ‘You’ll be lucky‘ he replied ‘That (‘certain department’) hasn’t been open properly for the last couple of years – staff shortage – most are working from home and others are on special leave due to covid‘. With that I was about to turn and leave when he offered to take the documents himself and said that he would try and get something sorted out for my mother-in-law but it may take a few days due to the lack of staff.
I handed the the documents over – he put them in a big envelope – wrote the name of the ‘certain department‘ on it and that was that.
… as an Aside – we all know the state is massively bloated and most jobs are pointless. It’s a shame that NO-ONE is doing their job in DVLA but hey ho.
I recently listened to the Audio. Book version of “Bullshit Jobs” by David Graeber and it made me make peace with a lot of the cognitive dissonance I’ve suffered over the years regarding why some people get ahead despite being useless f***wits.
https://agreatread.co.uk/bullshit-jobs-the-rise-of-pointless-work-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-9780141983479/
I suspect it’s not just the DVLA but all Govt Departments.
I’ve been trying to buy a flat – repossessed by the Child Support Agency (in 2019) – for TWO F***ING YEARS 😡The lazy f***ers take MONTHS to respond to any enquiry. 😡It would have been better if the f***ers had never repossessed the flat but let the poor guy who used to own it ( whom I’ve known for years – he desperately wants me to buy the flat by the way as he’s still on the hook for the mortgage ! ) – that way he would have somewhere to meet his child rather than being homeless which would be MUCH better for all concerned.
( As an aside so much mortgage interest has accrued that the CSA will get FA anyway – thus making their trumpeted triumph in this unusual case completely f***ing pointless)
Makes my piss boil 😡It seems that part of the breakdown of Western Society which we’re all watching slowly collapse around our ears is a Kafkaesque slow-mo “Death By Bureaucracy” where the Bureaucrats do NOTHING 😡</rant>
Lets not also forget that anybody attempting to re-mortgage now compared to buying is also being penalised with their LTV as the Land Registry are also 13months behind on (I paraphrase here) updating previous sold prices which lenders use to calculate their valuations.
So whilst house prices are rising by double figure percentages, a ‘desktop’ mortgage valuation will most probably be lower than the list or sale price.
Any mortgage valuation challenges go back to a very flawed process whereby the second opinion is actually the same entity who did the initial valuation, undertaking the second.
So if you hope to drop an LTV bracket or two on re-mortgage, saving maybe £30-40pm to help with inflation, you’re up the creek. Especially now the base rate is rising. The state has failed.
Indeed. And there’s another issue which is that – by the way my broker tells me it can take up to EIGHTEEN MONTHS for LandReg to register a sale now – unless a recent sale for your property of interest is actually registered with LandReg trying to either Buy / Sell / Remortgage is much harder unless you can get Solicitor Assurances etc .
there have been cases where LandReg have been so slow in registering correct title that it’s been possible for Fraudsters to claim title then “Sell” a house they don’t own to someone else !
I know I keep banging on about the collapse of Western Society but i think we are seeing it. We’re going to be like a tinpot third world state soon at this rate.
The work ethic in the public sector is shocking. Not on an individual basis as I am sure there are a number (probably small) who are diligent and hard working.
But on an institutional level it is shocking. Institutional Laziness anyone (after all if we can have ‘institutional racism’ why not anything else?)
The divergence between the attitude to work between the public and private sector is huge and here lies the problem. Everyone in the private sector knows that they bring in income (either directly or indirectly) for their employer. And that income is correlated with the quality of work they do. And on the back of that they get paid. If they dont contribute more than they cost then their job is untenable and they are made redundant.
This has been lost sight of in the public sector where the money flows in regardless of the quality of work, and so any employee has no incentive to work properly (other than their own professional pride which in most cases is lacking). Its that mind set that needs to change and the entire public sector be re-educated to learn that the money only flows in if the job is… Read more »
How do you account for the portion of the economy your own household steals from the productive part of the economy.
This is not a jab at you personally. I’m deadly serious.
Have you ever looked at your household economy and confessed to the parts of it which constitute the same kind of robbery? Seriously?
No idea why the downtick has been given to you with no comment. The public sector have been ignorant of the work ethic for decades. My niece had an interim job in London after graduating from university some 17 years ago – she was told that she was working far too quickly and had to slow down, My wife has just taken a payroll position with a business that used to be part of the council – there is overstaffing, useless HR (staff and systems), the line managers don’t do their jobs properly, over £90k in overpayments to employees as their departure from the business was never recorded with HR or payroll….And I have paid Council Tax for years to cover this gross incompetence.
Absolutely correct.
What few understand is that ‘public services’ are monsters of infinity.
Every public sector employee will tell you they have too much work and they need help. Assistance is duly recruited, even if there is insufficient work the assistant will be “busy.” And so it goes on.
Every public sector organisation has the potential for unlimited growth from its inception and because the public sector loves targets it will always seek to meet them.
The reason being that they do not have a single strand of productive working DNA in their bodies. They realise that they will always have the taxpayers’ teat on which to suckle so why bother to concern themselves with being more productive or looking to save money?
Wherever you go, there’s a byzantine system of paper, licences and other bumph. In my commercial fishing days, we had to deal with MCA over vessel safety, firefighting, survival and other “tickets”, then MAFF for fishing licences, and the Registrar of Shipping & Seamen (Cardiff, naturally), for vessel licensing. At the back of this were boatbuilders certificates, stability tests, and a host of other bits of paper. EU tentacles reached into this as well, and the whole procedure was, for years, topped off by having Gummer as the local MP, as well as MAFF Minister for several tiresome years (Cordelia and the Mad Cow Burger days).
It’s jobsworths all round, forget bonfires of paperwork and rules, and make the public pay for these charades.
It’s just a mob protection racket, the most organised of crime.
Absolutely agreed.
We are slaves. And we all accept the strongest gang to pay our protection to. Normalised by the unjust law we pay so much respect to.
Our ship got seconded to “fishery protection” in the 80’s, the MAFF officer was a complete pompous arse, he almost got filled in a number of times. Evey time we went out to board a vessel, I made sure he had a leaky survival suit, and drove the gemini so he’d get piss wet thru, we had a competition between us to see who could make him fall in the most, I’m not saying what the chefs did to his breakfast, but I’m surprised he made if off alive!
Seemed to be a lot of dodgy stuff going on with Spanish beam trawlers and Russian factory ships, but we never boarded those, some poor sod out of Brixham got prosecuted for removing a faulty engine limiter, it all seemed a bit of a farce to us.
Over regulation is in every aspect of business now, doesn’t matter what sector, I’ve come to believe they don’t want anyone to have independance from either gov or multinationals.
I think the clue is in who
ramps upprepares the regulation- that’s right, the Civil Service; it is in their best interests to expand the scope of the Public Sector because it is their self fulfilling mission in life. It is the archetypal Yes Minister plot as described in a tortuous speech by Sir Humphrey, if it was not so bloody serious.The Public sector is unsustainable at its current rate of expansion – not just the organs but how the PS dictates through red tape how the “rest of us” have to comply. But it is very difficult to see how that will change as it must; “Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving or Christmas”.
No wonder tax is at its highest for generations.
I don’t blame DVLA. This must be laid entirely at the door of No10.
Johnson and his Reset Gang must go.
How certain are you that at least a part of the blame lies on your own doorstep?
How so?
Nah. I blame firstly the skivers in the DVLA and then the general population that systematically brays for more public services, regulation and state mandated solutions to problems.
The crap performance of the public sector has been a fact of life since the late 1970s, coincidental with the rise of unions power
When the Government is corrupt and useless, then the people will become corrupt and useless in turn. Why would they do any different?
Anyone who has lived in a corrupt country like Nigeria, the Soviet Union, Vietnam or Indonesia will quickly recognize the pattern.
That is our present reality, and, I’m afraid, our future.
Working in public services is very difficult and particularly so for those who arrive there after some years in the private sector.
There are some good and decent people working in public service but they tend to be ground down by a surfeit of lazy mediocrity. Standing up for yourself, insisting on working to proper standards simply results in the wagging finger.
Public service is practically an oxymoron. The whole industry is Orwellian and dysfunctional.
I think the famous saying you use by Menken?, you’ve paraphrased inverted.
He said “when the people have become corrupt, the worst will rise to the top”
The psychic inversion of meaning is not an insignificant mistake. It signals a powerful but unconscious urge in most people to ‘project’ the dark side deep down onto something in the outside world.
WE are the problem. Because we elected every idiot in government under the democratic rules we all agreed to prior to election. Then we complain about whomever we already elected. Then we have another election and repeat the process. For a boomer this will have happened 5-10 times already.
So WE are the solution. But who will be the brave one to make a stand and say it.
This One will be far braver than a devout sceptic, anti vaxxer, pro trumper/brexiteer and sergeant of woke exploiting those they claim to be here to save(once again by projection).
Far far braver than these minnows.
Thoughts?
It’s more the Communist dance routine of “You pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”. The UK government has made the same absurd micro-managing rules (what is a ‘substantial’ meal enabling alcohol to be served) as you might have found in Russia or Albania in the 1980s.
The aim is not to guide and protect but to be arbitrary and degrading. People know these rules are absurd, yet they comply. Same as under Communism, people understand that under a corrupt system, there is no point in trying to live an honourable life. Better (easier, rather) to be corrupt and compliant.
Can I see the contract you think I signed! I only registered to vote because they threatened me with a £1000 fine if I didn’t, coercion voids the contract in law.
Whatever they do they do it themselves. Not in my name!
You have to fill out a census, you don’t have to be on the electoral role do you? Or at least you didn’t have to be… I always was cause I didn’t want it to drag down my ‘credit score’, but I felt that I had the choice.
Registration is mandatory pursuant to section 23 of the Representation
of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (No. 341) and
violators are liable on summary conviction and face a maximum fine of £1,000.
I sent them this email:
Dear Sir,
How can this be an ‘invitation’ to register if there is a threat
of financial extortion attached? e.g. I invite you to register on
my list of jobsworths, if you don’t register I reserve the right
to fine you £80 – obviously this is logically ridiculous, and
legally unenforsable.
Any contract entered into under duress is legally void.
This is the reply:
Thank you for your reply unfortunately I cannot help you with your
comments and have now sent on your reply to the next level of
management. I have also attached a link which gives you a full
explanation on what we have to follow in the
process of encouraging households to register. I have also put the link
on the civil penalty process which you mainly refer to in your reply,
although I would suggest you read the whole registration process which
should then give you a better understanding
of the electoral registration system.
Needless to say I… Read more »
Who with any self-respect or sense of purpose could lie in bed watching Netflix movies?
|From the future:
“What did you do when there was this terrible pandemic, Grandad?”
“Oh, you will admire Grandad. I really made a difference. I took full advantage of the vastly overhyped pandemic, while the taxpayer forked out for my wages. I lay in my pyjamas ‘sheltering watching box sets, as I was vulnerable, and put on four stone. Sometimes I got up and put on shapeless jogging bottoms, and slumped on the sofa. It was one of the best years of my life.
“Ah, so I guess you ‘counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth. Not peace, Grandad.’ ”
“Where did you get such strange words from?”
“I was in the middle of reading ‘Paradise Lost’ by Milton, Grandad.”
“Bit pretentious, isn’t it? Don’t you know this family is atheist, boy? And we don’t do heavy stuff. I don’t believe in all that nonsense….”
“That’s obvious, Grandad..”
I think those people who are on the verge of mental health problems. Rather than lacking self respect, which is more likely to be an effect of the former.
Perhaps a proper analysis of what is at the root of that is required.
Great idea. Let’s classify laziness as a mental health problem and those who suffer it as vulnerable.
Then we can expand the health service further, hire an army of psychologists, social workers, managers etc to deal with this newly identified mental disorder.
I mean this is basically the approach to things that is bringing our society to the verge of collapse. Let’s just keep going.
The DVLA is essentially workfare for Swansea. The half of them who deal with VED could be done away with overnight, remaining revenue neutral with a small bump in fuel duty, or a tax on tyres which would be a reasonable proxy for actual road use.
In my contacts with them, I have yet to find any DVLA employee who actually knows the laws and regulations. One chap expressed incredulous disbelief when I explained how motorcycle licensing categories actually work, with reference to the statues. He had formed a firm belief that DVLA could create new licence categories by fiat. And their beliefs then become reality – you can’t ask to speak to a grown up.
Like so many departments in Central Services, they are literally above the law.
Half the UK economy now is public sector. I think its more than half now.
‘Public Sector’ is not just the wealth transfer from producers to public sector deep pockets. It’s also the enormous economic rents drained from productivity, but collected privately, too. About half and half.
Research the meaning of the term ‘economic rent’ for further analysis. But don’t stop at the fake info on Wikipedia. Go deep. Very deep, else you will be duped, especially by the academies of learning.
So this means an inevitable recession, when we cross the line where the economy can no longer bear the draining of productivity into un-productivity. This is always the root cause of recessions, proper ones like 2008, 89 and 74 etc. What else could cause them than that the productive part of the economy is being drained by the non productive? It doesnt even need one to follow the science, its school child stuff.
The big Q is: will the people own up and confess that WE are the problem. Rather than whomever the blame most easily sticks to. The Banks, Oil, Trump, Putin, Communisits, Fascists, Nazi’s, The Woke etc)
When will we do this do you think?
Are… Read more »
Zeno of Citium talked of the Worthwhile versus the Worthless…
UBI declared in DVLA!
Acronym lovers delighted says press release.
Except UBI and DVLA are examples of initialism, not acronyms