DVLA boss accused of giving ‘misleading’ evidence to MPs over coronavirus cases

Kate Devlin
·2 min read
A sample of the new driving licence (DVLA)
A sample of the new driving licence (DVLA)

The head of the DVLA has been accused of giving misleading evidence to MPs over the scale of a Covid-19 infections among staff.

Julie Lennard, the chief executive of the authority, said press reports that there had been more than 500 cases identified among her staff were accurate, but that the figures included infections dating back to March.

Under sustained questioning by MPs on the Commons Transport Committee, however, it emerged that less than a dozen of the cases occurred before September.

Huw Merriman, the chair of the committee, told Ms Lennard he would not have written a letter to the committee stating that the figures stretched back to March “when from March to September is a grand total of 11. I found it (the letter) rather misleading”.

She replied: “It is true, but I apologise if that was misleading.”

Ms Lennard also admitted that Swansea Council had issued an order requiring the DVLA to co-operate over coronavirus issues, but could offer no explanation why the council had felt it necessary to take such a step.

Lilian Greenwood, a Labour member of the committee, told Ms Lennard “you don’t seem, even now, to be taking it seriously (the number of cases reported by DVLA staff)”.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) have condemned the DVLA’s attitude to the case numbers as a “scandal” while Welsh ministers have also expressed concern.

At the weekend a DVLA spokesperson strenuously denied a series of allegations about the outbreak which appeared in a Sunday newspaper.

The agency insists that staff who can work from home are doing so.

Ms Lennard told MPs the organisation had not shut a smoking shelter at one of its offices, despite multiple reports of workers congregating there, because it wanted to offer staff the opportunity to change their behaviour.

She also told the committee that an estimated 2,000 people, in operational roles which cannot be done at home, are working in different DVLA sites at any one time.

Tackled about the issue later in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said ministers had been working “flat out” on the problems at the DVLA and that more than 2,000 coronavirus tests had been carried out by the DVLA in the last few weeks alone.

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Ministers urged to intervene after 500 test positive at DVLA office

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