Shrewsbury DVLA staff may strike in protest at closures
Wednesday 14th December 2011, 5:00PM GMT.
Workers at Shrewsbury’s DVLA office could walk out in protest over Government plans to close the centre in 2013, union officials this afternoon said.
Bosses of the Public and Commercial Services Sector Union said with 1,200 jobs at risk nationally and 18 in Shrewsbury, it was likely workers would strike.
The Government wants to close 39 regional offices, including Shropshire’s only centre on Battlefield Enterprise Park, in Shrewsbury, by the end of 2013 and centralise the work done at the centres at the DVLA’s headquarters in Swansea.
Samantha Oxford, chairman of the PCS Midlands branch, said strike action was ‘very likely’ following yesterday’s announcement.
She said: “The news that the whole local office network and enforcement centre will close by the end of 2013 has come as a devastating shock.
“We have been expecting some news regarding the future of the local office network and enforcement centres since a document detailing a planned rationalisation was leaked to us last October.
“The network of local offices and enforcement centres have been instrumental in bringing the Vehicle Excise Evasion rate down to 0.5 per cent from the rate of five per cent five years ago.”
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said the plans made no economic sense and would be fiercely resisted.
He said: “With unemployment and inflation remaining high, these cuts to local communities are outrageous and unnecessary.”
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I attempted to contact DVLA Swansea via both the Web site and the phone and eventually gave up. Further to this I visited the Shrewsbury DVLA who were more than helpful in resolving my problems in a friendly and efficient way.
Would it not make more sense to keep this centre open as they reduce the obvious overload of work in Swansea (as they cant anwser the phone)
I would certainly be happy to pay for a local service that gets the job done there and then!
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You may be but I bet there’ll be 100,000 people behind you who won’t yet are quite happy to complain when things aren’t going to their favour.
The one thing that these offices provide is the ability to see the documents you have got and can quickly advise you if they are the correct ones you need, alas with Swansea what would have been a 30 second look is governed by the time it takes to return the post.
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Out you go then…..
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I totally agree with Steve we ended up at the Shrewsbury DVLA as we no longer use cheques and the only way to change details was to send to Swansea with a cheque or postal order which was going to cost a fortune in charges! The post office did not advise me to go to DVLA Shrewsbury but told me to ask someone to write a cheque for me! DVLA Shrewsbury could not of been more helpful they checked the paper work, took cash payment and sent off the documents. We need to keep this service as otherwise what would I have done as we had no other options!
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I’m of the internet generation but dealing face to face with competent, experienced staff is priceless.
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this is one goverment centre giving a excellent service to the people of north shropshire with the goverment collecting in excess of 27 billion pounds a yr for road fund licences, and just giving 40 million to the olympics in london without the blink of an eye, i say hands off our dvla office.
it of more use than silly games which we cant afford to go and watch because we pay too much tax,,
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really helpful staff at shrewsbury DVLA.Takes minutes to do instead of months by snailmail
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The closure of ’39 Regional Offices’ needs to be understood in the context of there being 39 regional offices – ALL the offices that offer a face-to-face service will be closed.
You will not be able to drive Manchester, Birmingham or even Swansea as their local office is also closing (don’t confuse the Swansea office with the DVLA centre)if you want face-to-face help or advice.
Ministers are DVLA execs are spinning this as ‘what people want’ , ‘moving forward’ and meeting customers needs.
The truth is, only the most basic transactions are currently available online (renewal of tax disc providing there is no break in taxing and no changes to address, keeper of categorisation). The driving licence options are also extremely limited and still require a form to be sent to DVLA Swansea.
The majority of applications, if this goes ahead, will most likely, have to be sent by mail to the centre at Swansea for actioning.
The claim that they will save £28m a year by closing the offices is dubious.
How about the money that will need to be spent on upgrading the online systems? This will cost millions itself.
There will also be some functions which, by their nature, cannot go online which DVLA have said will go to ‘intermediaries’ – privatisation, which as we all know, always comes at a cost.
It will also be bad news for motor traders who use the offices and will have a knock on effect on the local economy.
What, with the recent news about the Shropshire Council preparing to make further cuts next year, 2012 is shaping up as a pretty grim prospect – a recent Star story warned of a direct link between the loss of public sector jobs and the resulting effect on the local economy.
And so the vicious cycle goes on…
A ‘public consultation’ has been announced for anyone who wants to have their say…
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I bet they’d save far more money if they ditched the “tax disc” system.
Still have the road fund licence, but do away with the frankly medieval requirement of having a piece of paper stuck to your car windscreen.
It’s all in a database these days, so send out renewal notices based on the database, ask people to re-tax online or at the post office, and that’s it.
The SORN system must cost quite a bit to administer too, for very little benefit really. How much could be saved?
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The system of sending out ‘renewal notices based on the database, ask people to re-tax online or at the post office’ has been going on for years.
Straight vehicle relicensing on renewal hasn’t been a big part of DVLA offices operations for a long time.
Most people already use the Post Office or online for this purpose.
The two exceptions being people who live nearer the office than a PO, and organisations who have large fleets of vehicles – it is far more efficient for this second group to use DVLA Offices to process these multiple applications en masse than to have a member of staff sat online doing it for hours on end.
My understanding is that the regional offices’ work is made up more of transferring personal numbers, registering imported or previously unregistered vehicles and dealing with more complicated applications such as those where vehicles have been modified or need to switch tax class for some reason.
Not sure the tax disc system is medieval – I think your history might be a little confused – but it does help identify tax avoiders using the roads, which can often be an indicator of other offences such as driving with no MOT or insurance.
The SORN system ensures people either have to tax their vehicle or declare it off road. The benefits of this are twofold – 1)DVLA receive information on the whereabouts and status of every vehicle at least once every twelve months and 2)It deters evasion, while enforcement action for those who don’t comply brings in millions.
I do wish people would do some research into what they’re talking about before making faux authoritative pronouncements such as yours.
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If public servant jobs are lost then even more private sector jobs are lost as a consequence.
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