Why the driving test fiasco is the new A-level debacle for the Government - Catherine Scott says

After Ofqual was discredited for its handling of A-levels and the dreaded algorithm, it is the turn of the DVSA(Driving Standards Agency) to come under fire. Driving tests were cancelled during lockdown other than for key workers. When they were restarted on July 22 the plan was for all those who’d had their tests cancelled to be invited to take them before tests were opened to others who had passed their theory.

In the meantime driving lessons restarted and eager 17 year olds got behind the wheel. As a result when the DVSA reopened the driving test booking system on August 22 it crashed when seven million attempts were made to book tests. I was one of them as my 17 year old daughter has been waiting to take her test. The site was taken down eventually for ‘maintenance work’ and a new date of 8am on August 23 announced. So well before 8am - while on holiday in Turkey with dodgy wifi - we got ready to press the dreaded start button to be told we were 10,000th in the queue.

I thought that was bad until I spoke to a friend in the UK who was 99,000th. We watched as the little green man - a strange graphic for a driving test - crawled along counting down the number of booked tests. At the rate he was going she would be turning 30 before being able to book a test. Then things speeded up and by 12pm we had got below 3,000 - just for the page to crash and be pushed to the back of the queue with 198,000 people in front of us. Eventually they closed the site at 5.30pm by which time scores of angry people, including me, had taken to Twitter to vent their frustration at having waited all day to be told they would have to start again the following Tuesday. Many of those who had managed to get through found that there were no tests available at their centre or even close by.

So yesterday, with finger poised we pressed the start button at dead on 8am to find there were already 50,000 people ahead of us in the queue. It appears, despite what the DVSA say, there was a prequeue that meant people who logged on before 8am got ahead. Another day loomed watching the little green man trudge on. But as all the 19,000 tests released became booked up the number in front dropped and at 12pm we were in - only to find all tests booked up. So we now have one in October 27 miles away but at least we have a date. The DVSA say from September 14 they will be making 350,000 tests available up until January 2021.

They have had months to come up with a solution and this is the best they can do.