Piss poor by the DVSA

[Lord Snooty]

My boss has taken a candidate in for his MOD2 test this morning. The examiner is a bloke called Drew and he is a very decent chap; however a couple of weeks ago when we had a guy on test Drew's radio was playing up. Two weeks later nothing has been done about it and he still has problems. Our guy gets through his test and it is obvious that Drew cannot continue with the remaining tests due to the comms problems. At this point the next two candidates from another school are in the car park waiting to go on test, we know the instructor, Julian, as he came to us a few months ago asking for help to prepare him for his DVSA DAS assessment which I am pleased to say he passed. So Si, my boss, takes Drew's helmet and offers to take it back to our offices and fit one of our spare Cardo headsets and boom mic and to lend Drew a couple of our spare Cardo radios so he can continue with the tests. He also brings Julian and his two students back to our office so they can sit in our air conditioned classroom and have a drink rather than waiting in the baking sun in the test centre car park.

Si fits out the helmet and he heads back to the test centre with Julian and his student.

Without Si's intervention the rest of the day's tests would have to be cancelled. Given the comms problems were known a few weeks ago I think this is piss poor by the DVSA, where is the contingency planning? why do they not have spare radios available at test centres?. Instead they have had to rely on the goodwill of a local riding school to get them out of the shit. Hopefully the guys passed, our lad did by the way.

 

[Guru Gora]

Because they are a Gov Dept and therefore underfunded and open to Operation Clusterfuck.

Sound like you chaps did a great fix though

 

[leedude03]

Good to hear Si sorted it out, but as you say Mike this should not happen, there should be at least one spare unit so that if there is a failure you have at least a certain amount of cover for it.
Mind you they cant even make a dent in the backlog of tests that were caused by covid, its all going tits up, not to mention the single day chadderton test now.

 

[Neil W]

If it is anything like the Police , everything has to be done by the correct channels and via specific suppliers/ repairers and takes forever and costs a fortune.
For example my Airwaves radio was playing up so went in for repair and I was given a loan one ........... months later my radio was still not back so got our comms to try and find it.
It was at a Motorolla repair facility in somewhere like Venezuala, other radios ended up being repaied in Israel
Similarly one of the lads wanted a new galvanised water bucket for his dogs kennel, walk into Screwfix and it was £10, cost if a report was put in and a purchase chiit was raised and the bucket was supplied by an authorised agent ............£79.
No doubt DVSA will be stuck with similar purchasing or repair procedures

 

[Lord Snooty]

If it is anything like the Police , everything has to be done by the correct channels and via specific suppliers/ repairers and takes forever and costs a fortune.
For example my Airwaves radio was playing up so went in for repair and I was given a loan one ........... months later my radio was still not back so got our comms to try and find it.
It was at a Motorolla repair facility in somewhere like Venezuala, other radios ended up being repaied in Israel
Similarly one of the lads wanted a new galvanised water bucket for his dogs kennel, walk into Screwfix and it was £10, cost if a report was put in and a purchase chiit was raised and the bucket was supplied by an authorised agent ............£79.
No doubt DVSA will be stuck with similar purchasing or repair procedures

I guess this is typical of government waste, departments run by people who have are not responsible or accountable for the bottom line and have never had a real world job in their life or been self-employed or ran a small business. It is just someone else's money.

 

[Fullchat]

If it is anything like the Police , everything has to be done by the correct channels and via specific suppliers/ repairers and takes forever and costs a fortune.
For example my Airwaves radio was playing up so went in for repair and I was given a loan one ........... months later my radio was still not back so got our comms to try and find it.
It was at a Motorolla repair facility in somewhere like Venezuala, other radios ended up being repaied in Israel
Similarly one of the lads wanted a new galvanised water bucket for his dogs kennel, walk into Screwfix and it was £10, cost if a report was put in and a purchase chiit was raised and the bucket was supplied by an authorised agent ............£79.
No doubt DVSA will be stuck with similar purchasing or repair procedures

Similar scenario to us needing urgently a circular saw after ours was nicked when the range store was screwed, 8' X 4" ripped into 4 for the paper targets to be pasted there on. At that time there was a Black and Decker shop right next door. Purchasing could only offer something in the mid £100s and that would have to be ordered. I nipped into B&D and got a refurb for £35 and got the money from petty cash. Procurement is an expensive minefield.

 

[KickStarter]

Glad you got this sorted.

I had a somewhat similar story from our local copper, police car had indicator light out, could they do it themselves or even pop to Halfords, absolutely not.

Owing to ass covering only a certified ‘mechanic’ could do that, and it took the car off the road for a week…

 

[Fireflyer]

other radios ended up being repaied in Israel

They didn’t supply you with any pagers or mobile phones did they

 

[Morety]

I guess this is typical of government waste, departments run by people who have are not responsible or accountable for the bottom line and have never had a real world job in their life or been self-employed or ran a small business. It is just someone else's money.

It's exactly that Mike. A good friend of mine works for the Audit Commission, where he's fairly senior, and gets to look at a lot of different quangos and gov't sponsored departments. His view is that there's little accountability, poor management, and terrible governance partly due to central gov't failings. Procurement is deliberately complex, too many chiefs and not enough Indians doing the work. It's a black hole for tax spending accountability and the bottom line for those on the ground trying to deliver a decent service is they're so hamstrung, it makes it almost impossible. In this case, a great outcome thanks to the generosity and sensible thinking of Si.

 

[zerax9]

Because they are a Gov Dept and therefore underfunded and open to Operation Clusterfuck.

Sound like you chaps did a great fix though

IMHO... there's plenty of money... it's a question of how they spend it...