PDI / Part 2 & 3 - ADI Standards

Necessarily, to mitigate the risk of infection, changes have been made to the Standards Check, Part Two and Part Three assessments and have been designed to reduce the amount of contact time Examiners, candidates and pupils have to have in the vehicle.

The main changes are:

• Pre and post briefings will be conducted outside of the vehicle • The assessment will be 45 minutes overall with the amount of time within the assessment where ‘wheels are turning’ reduced to 40 minutes • The Examiner may choose the start and finish time of the test. • A meeting point will be agreed for the assessment. In the current climate, to reduce reliance on physical test centres, on some occasions the Examiner and candidate may agree to meet at a mutually convenient location – this will be agreed in the Engagement call outlined below • The candidate may choose an alternative meeting point BUT it must be within 5 minutes of the test centre. • The introduction of an engagement call to confirm the arrangements for the assessment and to give candidates an opportunity to ask any questions about the assessment • Examiners, candidates and pupils will be required to wear a face covering and follow good hand and vehicle hygiene practices to mitigate the risks to all concerned

What hasn’t changed?

• There’s no change to what the Examiner expects to see and assess • Candidates should cover all competencies, even though the time has been reduced: you will still be assessed on all elements. • Candidates should have spent time, when they collect their pupils, setting out the goals for the lesson and discussing risk management • It is still expected that these key competencies are recapped for the purpose of the assessment

Please note – as the focus of these changes are designed to reduce the period of exposure and time spent in an enclosed vehicle, every effort must be made to keep the main body of the assessment ‘wheels moving’ (and vehicle well ventilated) . Therefore a beginner or static lesson is NOT acceptable. The Examiner will not conduct the test and your fee will be lost if you present with a beginner.

Wheels moving: This does not mean that candidates cannot stop or change the lesson plan if something goes wrong. DVSA expect this, the lesson is for the benefit of their pupil.

The Examiner is not expecting a 10 to 15-minute static brief during the minimum 40 minutes ‘wheels moving’ assessment. If the candidate persists with a static brief, and the Examiner cannot make a satisfactory assessment, they will try and manage this situation with a discreet prompt. In this scenario, on the return the Examiner should terminate the test – no result. If this happens on a Part 3 test, the fee will be forfeited. On a standards check, the lesson will be void and the Instructor will have to attend again

The Engagement Call

Part of the measures introduced in response to COVID-19 is that a member of the ADI Enforcement team will call the candidate the week before the assessment. The purpose of this call is to confirm arrangements for the assessment

• When they call you, they will confirm that your pupil is either partly trained, trained or a full licence holder • A location will be agreed for Examiner and candidate to meet • In this call the Examiner will check that the candidate is clear on the format and purpose of the assessment • They will give the candidate the opportunity to ask any questions about any aspect of the assessment they are unsure of • The examiner may, if the candidate has taken pupils to test either L test or any of the qualifying exams, discuss any pattern of faults that have been recorded in their personal reference number, this is sometimes known as their Crystal report and is available for any ADI/PDI on request via padi@dvsa.gov.uk  The Crystal report is basically a fault analysis of any tests you have taken within the last year and may help with your fault analysis. • The Examiner will not be coaching or giving any individual guidance to the candidate but will encourage the candidate to fully prepare for the assessment and seek additional guidance or training from an ORDIT trainer if needed

NASP’s position on the changes

NASP and ORDIT registered trainers have been consulted on the changes and been given opportunity to input suggestions.

We did query whether role play could be temporarily introduced to further mitigate the risk of exposure - our question was whether it was necessary to expose a third party (i.e. the pupil) in the process in the current climate. DVSA however were concerned that role play is not an effective way to gain the best insight into how trainers manage the training and learning process and also the risk.

We also suggested that more emphasis should be pointed towards Part 3 testing as these are new peoples livelihoods, standards checks on the whole as not so critical as they can span over a four year period and will catch up fairly quickly after the Covid 19 special measures are complete, we do except  that the Registrar may have some ADIs they would need to see for exceptional circumstances.

We welcome the introduction of the engagement call and have suggested to DVSA that this could be continued post COVID and become a regular part of SC’s and Parts 3 assessments.

NASP is currently working with DVSA on a short video walking through the main changes.

You can view the DVSA SOP COVID-19 ADI Part 2

and the DVSA SOP COVID-19 ADI 3 SC