Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-137)
DEPARTMENT FOR
TRANSPORT & DVLA
17 OCTOBER 2007
Q120 Mr Dunne: As the number of post
offices is declining through a Government process over the next
year, could I encourage you to have a look at your contract with
the Post Office and look at whether you could not ensure that
all sub-post offices which remain (which will be in receipt of
Government subsidy) have the ability to issue Vehicle Excise discs?
It seems to me a good way of joined-up thinking across government
at very little cost to the DVLA.
Mr Bennett: I think the reality
is that the volume will continue to drop because the public want
to use Electronic Vehicle Licensing, quite obviously. What we
are doing with the Post Office, which answers your question, is
to talk to them about other potential business they could do with
the DVLA to preserve something of the Post Office's on-going business,
so that is what we are looking at with the Post Office. I think
it would be very wrong for me to promise you that we would suddenly
start spreading out a reducing amount of VED across a broader
amount of offices. That just is not going to happen because the
public do not want it to happen, they want to use Electronic Vehicle
Licensing.
Q121 Mr Dunne: The public of a certain
age want to but there is a certain age of the population that
does not use computers.
Mr Bennett: They can use the telephone
as well, it is not just the computer, so you can pick up the phone
and re-license or book your vehicle for SORN.
Chairman: I wonder if I can let Mr Bacon
come in because there is going to be a division in three minutes'
time.
Q122 Mr Bacon: I will try and be
quick and I apologise for not being here at the beginning. I know
the Chairman has asked a question about motorcycles. The single
thing that struck me most about this Report was the enormous division
between cars on the one hand and motorcycles on the other. Yes,
it is true that five per cent of non-payers is a situation that
is getting worse from three per cent the year before, nonetheless,
on any view, nine and a half out of ten are paying. It is not
bad and it could be a lot worse. With motorcycles it is of a wholly
different order; two out of five are not paying. We have had a
note from the Motorcycle Industry Association, which seems to
jump through any number of hoops and divide itself by the number
it first thought of to show that it is all to do with sampling
and really it is the wicked old DfT and the DVLA. There may be
something in this and perhaps you could comment on that if there
is time, but what I really want to know is why is there this huge
difference?
Mr Bennett: There are lots of
reasons why it is more difficult and I think we have covered a
few of these, but if I can quickly go over them. One is that motorbikes
are much more able to not go on public roads and much less frequently
because they tend to be used for leisure activities, which makes
it difficult for us because we can only enforce on public roads
at the moment.
Q123 Mr Bacon: Hang on, you are not
saying that it is all due to people motocrossing?
Mr Bennett: No, I am just saying
they do not use them all the year round in the way that cars are
used.
Q124 Mr Bacon: It is an easier vehicle
to hide or stick in a garage when you are not using it and so
on and so forth; granted.
Mr Bennett: Secondly, it is more
difficult to pick them up on ANPR because of the number plate
size and most of the Police ANPRs cannot yet read the number plates.
Our new ones can, so that is set to change. The other thing is
just the cost of insurance itself encourages non-compliance because
the tax level is very small, as you probably appreciate.
Q125 Mr Bacon: What is the fee for
a tax disc for a motorbike?
Mr Bennett: About £43 for
a motor cycle for example, typically average, against £153
on average for a car.
Q126 Mr Bacon: Does it go up with
cubic capacity so a small motorbike and a Harley Davidson would
have a different tax disc?
Mr Bennett: I have only got the
average here of £43.
Q127 Mr Bacon: What is the range?
Mr Bennett: Offhand I cannot remember.
Will somebody respond please and I will come back to you on that.
Q128 Mr Bacon: Just send us a note.
Do I take it that the Motorcycle Industry Association's excuse
or explanation that it is all sampling is not adequate? It cannot
be accounted for by sampling, even if your sampling is—
Dr Hickey: They are making the
same point that we also make about the whole thing. There is a
gap between, as it were, the ones you actually spot when somebody
is on the road and the numbers that you then apply in the methodology,
and there is a gap there for all of them, and it is particularly
acute in this case. Our statisticians are obviously looking at
that bit of paper we received yesterday.
Q129 Mr Bacon: It sounds like the
gap is just too big, surely, to be accounted for purely by sampling
error.
Dr Hickey: Yes.
Q130 Mr Bacon: Good, I thought that
is what you would say. My final question: what is your total advertising
spend?
Mr Bennett: This last year?
Q131 Mr Bacon: Yes, including television
advertising?
Mr Bennett: It was £5.4 million
in 2006-07.
Q132 Mr Bacon: That includes radio,
television and print?
Mr Bennett: Radio and television,
the works.
Q133 Mr Bacon: Have you thought of
spending a bit of that, even for a limited period, on a blitz
on this motorcycling issue?
Mr Bennett: Yes indeed—
Q134 Mr Bacon: It would be a quicker
way of doing it than doing anything else and would put the fear
of God into people.
Mr Bennett: That is a very good
point and indeed we have got an advertising campaign which does
exactly that. That is what I was explaining earlier. We use the
survey positively because it is the only time we really understand
the under-class issue. We then use that to target our advertising
more effectively and we have a current campaign, that started
in the summer, specifically targeting motor cycles.
Q135 Mr Bacon: And could you co-operate
with the Police for targeted temporary blitzes? That would obviously
help with the workload.
Mr Bennett: And we will increase
it. One of the things we are starting to do is to re-gear our
enforcement to, for example, go where bikes go—rallies and
that kind of thing—on a routine basis because of the problem.
So, yes, we are doing that and we always review our enforcement
focus based upon where the problem is.
Dr Hickey: The range of VED is
from £15 to £65.
Mr Bacon: £15 to £64 is my
version. Thank you very much.
Q136 Chairman: Why are you so poor
at pursuing people through the courts? There are many people who
are not pursued through debt collection agencies or through the
courts.
Mr Bennett: If you take the cases
that we send to court, we send on this particular example 108
cases to court and, of those, 29 court cases will pay. This is
in thousands so it is 108,000 and 29,000 will pay. The real problem
is getting the payment out of the courts to offset it. This is
one of the reasons why we moved towards debt collection. It costs
us for every court case we put through. With debt collection we
only pay on a no-win no-fee basis. We get about the same success
rate though in collecting the fee.
Q137 Chairman: I think that concludes
our hearing. It has been a very interesting hearing. I am sorry,
Mr Bennett, that it has been a very poor report because you are
a very pleasant witness. I wish you well in your retirement.
Mr Bennett: Thank you.
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