Even though he can presumably provide driving licence number, ni number and postcode to view (or share with his employer)
Are they paying him to sit on his arse? Or rather sit stationary rather than sit at 56mph? If so, crackers!
However, since late-January 2017, all British passports have been issued without a digital copy of the holder's signature. Drivers who have applied for a new passport since 2017 but have never held a digital signature on their passport before will be unable to apply for a licence renewal online."
Chris
By county
Yes, I did that too.
But I think this is a more generic proposal.
Or borough.
in London
Shirley thinks he meant County Boroughs
That works well if there is little risk of forgeries or they have little consequence. IIRC DVLA's argument is that there is a significant risk of forgeries in applications for licences which could have severe consequences (e.g. a driver who never passed a test or medical in a 40 tonne HGV) so they need access to the original passport etc. And the same militates against staff dealing with such work at home.
I'm not saying they are right but it is an issue that doesn't arise with many other organisations.
Yes. I know. I used the Stretford DVLA office to register my kit-car after it passed Single Vehicle Approval.
What I was suggesting though was a single office that could check, verify and electronically forward documents for any purpose (be-it government, council, DVLA, immigration, passport office, etc.), not just DVLA. I was not suggesting a return to individual local offices that could actually do any other work.
Yes, that was my idea. Just somewhere to physically see, scan and forward documents to wherever they are needed. It could work for anything where original documents needed to be seen - DVLA, passport applications, councils, government departments, banks, financial services, etc.
Crazy talk. Next people will be suggesting a card to prove your identity without having to provide a big sheaf of bank statements and utility bills...
More seriously, this is because we have don't have an kind of centralised infrastructure for this, it is all left to companies to do their own thing. That means nobody trusts the judgement of anyone else, and so everyone insists on doing their own ID and document checking. In reality I very much doubt they're actually going to be spotting forged utility bills or birth certificates, but it comforts them if the function is in-house rather than done by a third party they can't sue if they mess it up.
Then there are the 'innovators' like Plaid whose idea of checking your ID is to ask access to your bank account via Open Banking and fish around in it (definitely not siphoning off your personal data or profiling you, definitely).
And for things like medical certificates, they don't want to know if they are printed on the right paper, they want to know that Dr Bloggs did in fact certify you to drive, and his secretary didn't forge the certificate. Which can only really be done by contacting Dr Bloggs himself (and verifying his identity too).
Theo
That was rather my point. They will not accept photocopies or scans as they want to see the original document, but if local government offices
*were* seeing the original documents and taking the scans themselves, the DVLA could rely upon them. It is just moving the physical handling to a local office, with secure email, so the delays and risks of posting originals is avoided.Steve Walker formulated on Wednesday :
It seems the perfectly straight forward application are being processed at full speed, but if there is any sort of complication needing manual review or action, there are months of delays and lost/out of time applications.
That was what I took you to have in mind. It was I who was unclear.
What you propose only replicates what DVLA do if the staff in the local offices don't just scan what's presented to them but also check them to the same standards as DVLA. I am out of date but that used to include sending the documents to more specialist staff, including off-site experts if fraud was suspected.
While a local office might have some of that expertise it makes it more expensive, especially if you want a lot of offices so access is easy.
And it means it can't be a guaranteed "while you wait" service. Some people will be told they have to leave their documents and come back to collect them (or have them posted).
That certainly seems to be the case. I renewed my licence online on 21st May and returned my old licence by post as requested. After ten weeks I'm still waiting for my new licence and the DVLA status page shows my application as "In Progress: Awaiting Application Return Form".
I've periodically chased this up with them and always get an email telling me not to worry, there's a long delay before incoming post gets opened and the status won't change until the returned licence is processed.
I expect if I'd ticked the option on the online form to say that I couldn't return the old licence because I'd lost it then I'd have had my new licence very quickly.
I don't think it would make it that expensive, because it would be a universal service, covering any need for original documents - it could easily be extended to solicitors, courts, commercial organisations - all sharing the same resource (and therefore the costs).
I can't see that the staff at the DVLA and other agencies would be any better than those in dedicated document handling offices. How many do the DVLA send to a specialist for examination? I would think it more likely that they just do a bit more cross-checking where there is doubt ... and they can still do that.
After ten weeks
They wanted the old licence posted back but not necessarily needed to get a new licence. In my case my new licence turned up before I posted back my old (cut up) licence.
You must be right if staff in these local offices would be able to do checks "on the spot" across the range of documents submitted to DVLA to the required standard. I was mainly setting out why over the years calls for them to accept copies like others who accept e.g. copies certified by the Post Office or solicitors. That seems still to be government policy. But you could offer your idea to Ms Begum or to the many other Opposition MPs keen to roast HMG about DVLA's mess. See example below.
I am a bit puzzled though why you think it's just a matter of a bit more cross-checking. DVLA - like the Passport Office - want documents precisely because there are no easy checks for people not already "in the system".
[1]"If a driving licence applicant?s identity cannot be verified by HM Passport Office or via another secure service, the requirement for original identity documents remains a critical part of protecting the driving licence application process from potential fraud. There are no plans to remove these requirements."]
Unless they are really suspicious, I cannot see them sending original documents to specialists for analysis. So I would expect that they mainly accept what they are sent, but either request or look for more evidence as the next step - which might be requesting personal references - as used for passports and other things.
+1 Same here, over 70 renewal online - new licence received 3 days later. Does anyone actually pay the postage to send the old cut up licence back ?
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