Looking at the drop off in services to ADIs, PDIs and rider trainers in the last five years in terms of licensing and assessment provision, and aware of the general lack of the valuing of trainers as a customer of the agency (verses an entity to be regulated), DIA submitted an FOI request to DVSA on fee income derived from licensed trainers in the last five years.
The table below shows an increase in income from this customer segment of a third, with a jump from £7,667,808 in 2021/22 to over £10 million in 2025/26.
Annex A 2606-110759 – ADI revenue per annum
| 2021/2022 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | |
| ADI – Pass Plus | £31,055.00 | £37,975.00 | £44,261.00 | £52,081.00 | £51,034.00 |
| ADI – Registration | £3,718,718.83 | £3,059,641.83 | £3,065,092.50 | £3,147,104.50 | £3,285,387.75 |
| ADI Part 1 | £1,473,297.00 | £1,656,326.20 | £2,132,345.00 | £2,542,825.00 | £2,666,211.00 |
| ADI Part 2 & 3 | £1,848,927.00 | £1,994,115.00 | £2,193,804.00 | £3,192,403.50 | £3,131,559.00 |
| ADI Trainee License Issue | £595,811.00 | £657,025.00 | £734,365.00 | £871,730.00 | £1,019,253.80 |
| Total | £7,667,808.83 | £7,405,083.03 | £8,169,867.50 | £9,806,144.00 | £10,153,445.55 |
Now, it’s no surprise to see trainee licences and qualifying assessments being a key driver of growth, but when these customers aren’t getting what they perceive as products and services being delivered in a timely manner, it places a question mark over value for money at the very least!
And when you extrapolate the value of ADIs alone to DVSA’s balance sheet, based on the numbers currently on the register renewing over the typical 4 year cycle, equating to over tens of millions of pounds of revenue for ADI licences alone over each 4 year period, and whilst recognising the arguably good value of the ADI licence to the trainer in terms of earning power, the fact DVSA can’t use some of that income to deliver a few more Standards Checks and other baseline ADI services is incredible.
How long do you think you would be in business as a ADI if you kept taking money from services and didn’t deliver many of them? You’d probably be attracting a few complaints, and an investigation from DVSA for such…
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One Response
I’d like to know they state there’s only 44 examiners to carry out all ADI/PDI tests. Income seems to be soaring this year and reading between the lines most is generated from the PDI revenue. Why are ADI check tests being put on the back burner and being favoured by PDI testing. If there isn’t enough examiners to focus on what the DVSA already have then not taking on any more PDI’s until more examiners are in place to carry out the workload should be considered. Otherwise it looks very much like it’s a money making exercise.