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DVLA off-road system seriously off-message

SORN shambles

They make mistakes – as exemplified by the case of Lois Mallon, last September, before Teesside Magistrates’ Court. She was found not guilty of failing to notify a change of keeper in respect. However, the DVLA had insisted on prosecuting Ms Mallon despite her producing letters in court showing she had notified the DVLA when she sold her Peugeot 107 in January 2009.

It is quick to apply pressure. Mr Collins and Mr Peck both complain about intervention from debt collection agencies while their complaints were supposedly under investigation. In one case, the agency used by the DVLA was itself under investigation for unlawful conduct – but it took another FoI request before the DVLA would admit to this.

The DVLA has no internal review process, and while there is scope for complaints to be referred to an independent assessor, whether or not this happens is up to the Chief Executive. It is thus judge and jury in its own cause.

If the courts applied the letter of the law, the body that looks after our vehicle registrations could find itself millions of pounds out of pocket. One estimate suggests that the figure collected by way of SORN penalty notices is in excess of £10m per year.

Luckily, however, as has been demonstrated in a series of recent high-profile cases, the fact that something is unlawful is no reason for government to stop doing it – and that is pretty much the story in this case.

When questions have been asked previously about the DVLA’s conduct, they have been slow to provide a legal justification, relying mostly on the argument that they "would not" breach the law – so obviously they have not.

A spokesman for the DVLA told us: "The DVLA does not impose any requirements for customers to obtain proof of posting or use recorded delivery in their dealings with us. However, and this is a key point, the onus is on the customer to ensure their off-road notification is delivered to DVLA."

This appears to contradict the result of the judge's ruling in the case of Mr Collins.

They added: "With reference to non-receipt of acknowledgement letters by customers, there is no legal obligation on the customer to contact DVLA if they do not receive their acknowledgement letter. However, and another key point, we do advise customers to contact us if this happens so that we can confirm if their notification has been delivered to us or advise them otherwise how to comply".

Again, there appears to be some discrepancy here between the official line and the argument initially put forward in the case of Mr Peck. The DVLA declined to respond to questions about its ability to audit or track mail internally - or to confirm that it does lose mail internally.

This is at the heart of criticism levelled by Paul Watters, Head of Public Affairs at the AA. He told us: "I personally don't think a coach and horses has been driven through late tax/SORN penalties but I agree there are weaknesses.

"Any system that relies on the post is dependent on it being sent and received. We have highlighted this weakness on many occasions in particular with civil parking and traffic offences. Missing one piece of important paper can result in bailiffs at the door step.

"We believe that when penalty notice offence amounts escalate through non-payment the letters should be recorded - this would add to the cost but this could be covered by the well-heeled parking/traffic authorities who make big bucks from PCNs.

"We have called for there to be an open, independent and transparent appeal system for DVLA enforcement. We say that staying compliant should be made really easy and there should be tolerance of small mistakes. If the authorities lose sight of this they will also lose the support of motorists." ®

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