There will be delays to driving licences being processed and vehicle tax reminders as DVLA staff have announced 15 days of strike action next month, according to the union representing them.
Members of the PCS union have said they will walk out between 11 and 25 June.
Announcing the action, a union spokesman said: “The workers print materials for DVLA and other government departments, meaning no vehicle tax reminders will be printed, and there will be backlogs for driving licences and tachographs.
“When this group of workers took strike action in February, the print machines remained switched off.”
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Mark Serwotka, the union’s general secretary, said: “Managers struggled last time and they’ll struggle this time. We’re not afraid to turn up the pressure on ministers to achieve our reasonable demands – a fair pay rise to help our members through the cost-of-living crisis and beyond.”
It is understood that roughly a quarter of DVLA staff voted to take industrial action – and less than 100 staff will be involved in the newly announced strikes.
The agency does not believe that the processing of driving licences will be impacted by the strikes.
The bureaucracy around the DVLA has struggled since the pandemic.
MPs have heard that – since April 2020 – three million people have experienced delays with their driving licences, although processing times are said to be back to normal.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s system to process applications for licences is “slow, inefficient and in need of major improvement”, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee said.
Members of the PCS union, which includes many civil servants and government departments, have been embarking on a series of industrial actions since the end of last year.
This includes more than 100,000 people striking in March when Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his budget.
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The union is currently weighing up whether to call for more national action, which could include the Passport Office and Border Force, as well as the DVLA.
A DVLA spokesperson said: “The quickest and easiest way to deal with DVLA is through our online services which, along with our contact centre, is operating as normal during this period of industrial action.”
