PCS members working for DVSA to take strike action
The members at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency will strike for four days in February in the dispute over the Agency’s driver services recovery programme.
PCS members working for DVSA will walk out on 8, 9, 10 and 11 February in their dispute.
The ‘driver services recovery programme’ is a politically driven programme which seeks to recover backlogs to a national average of 7 weeks by 31 March 2024.
The programme poses significant safety risks to test candidates and examiners, as well as an erosion of staff’s terms and conditions. It fails to address the root causes of the backlog and requires staff to deliver an additional 150,000 tests on top of their normal workloads. This is despite DVSA’s own admission that even 150,000 additional driving tests will still result in missing the target.
Despite PCS’s best efforts, an acceptable agreement has not been reached through dispute resolution negotiation and our reasonable demands have not been met.
PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, said:
"The actions of DVSA management are reckless; prioritising business need over the health, safety and welfare of our members whilst attempting to attack their terms and conditions. The actions taken by the Agency show a total disregard for our members upon whom they rely to keep the Agency operating.
"Our members want to support a reduction in the driving test waiting times, whilst maintaining high standards and the integrity of the services they deliver, but are not prepared to do so at detrimental cost to their health and safety nor their terms and conditions.
"This strike action is avoidable and DVSA must now act to table a proposal that adequately addresses the concerns raised and meets the PCS demands."