It was great to receive so much interest in our first stakeholder webchat last week. There were over 300 questions and Dudley, Hugh and Lynette managed to answer just over half of them in the 1hr 30min available. We plan to host our next webchat shortly and will advertise the details via this blog.
If you missed the first webchat a transcript is available to download.
As promised, we’ve been through the unanswered questions - the following information addresses the top issues:
Endorsements/Penalty points:
- from 8 June 2015 – all licences (including pre-1998 paper licences) will no longer be annotated with new endorsements/penalty points. This information will only be recorded on the DVLA driver record, and accessed online, by phone, post or licence checking intermediary
- drivers charged with an offence (for example, speeding) will continue to be sent a fixed penalty notice or court summons as currently happens
- drivers will still need to submit their photocard (or pre-1998 paper licence) to the fixed penalty office/court. The licence will be returned to the driver with an explanatory letter advising how they can now check their DVLA driving record
- Share Driving Licence and our other enquiry services will show offences/endorsements recorded within the last 5 years. Any offence/endorsement older than 5 years at the time of enquiry will not be shown to third parties in accordance with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. This reduces to 2 and a half years if the offence was committed before the driver was aged 18
Share Driving Licence, watch our video for an overview of the service:
- the driver will need their national insurance number, driver number (or personal details) and post code to access the service and generate the check code. The third party enquirer will need this check code plus the last 8 digits of the driver number
- the check code is due to be valid for 72 hours during private beta, but this may change for the public beta and when we go into live depending on user feedback
- private beta will run from March into April with a limited number of real users
- public beta is expected from late April/early May. This will allow anyone to access and use the service via GOV.UK. As a beta version it may be taken down for improvements/maintenance without notice
- a ‘live’ (ie fully supported service) date will be dependent on the extent of any changes that are identified from the public beta – but this is expected to be on or before 8 June
- drivers who are unable to use our online service can obtain a one-time use check code via our Contact Centre. This code can then be used by a third party online, or where this is not possible the third party may call us to receive the ‘counterpart’ information verbally. Calls will be charged at local rate. Please note our current premium rate telephone service will continue to be available.
- our Contact Centre opening hours will remain as Monday to Friday 8:00am to 7:00pm, Saturday 8:00am to 2:00pm
- the view of the record for third parties can be downloaded as a PDF. It will also be date/time stamped for record keeping purposes and can be saved or printed
- the view of the record for third parties will contain the drivers name, last 8 digits of the driver number and licence issue number. These details can be used to link the record to the driver’s photocard
Bulk checking of driving licences:
- bulk licence checking can currently be done via a licence checking intermediary. Businesses can also apply to join our Electronic Driver Entitlement Checking Service (EDECS) service. There are deployment and enquiry costs associated with EDECS and access is governed via a contract. For further information on EDECS or a list of intermediaries please contact decs@dvla.gsi.gov.uk
- we’re also developing a real-time licence checking service called Access to Driver Data (ADD). This service will be available as an API (application program interface) to allow driver data to be shared between business systems. We’re currently working through the commercial and contractual requirements for the service and have started to engage with industry trade associations as a potential means of providing this service to their members
- when we’re in a position to share more detail on the criteria and timescales to join our ADD service we’ll update you on our Digital Services blog.
I hope the above information has gone some way to answer your questions. Further enquiries on the on abolition of the counterpart can be sent to abolitionofcounterpart@dvla.gsi.gov.uk. You can also leave a question via our comments facility below.