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By Tim Ferguson, 16 January 2008 09:00

NEWS

The Department for Transport and its agencies, including the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), have saved £33m using online and electronic services in the last year.

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The online services for the DVLA, Driving Standards Agency (DSA) and the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency were singled out for praise in a report by public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO).

The report said the agencies have created significant savings and made services more accessible to the public through online, phone and business-to-business computer systems.

Fifteen 'e-services' are now available, from applying for provisional driving licences, booking driving and theory tests to buying car tax.

During the financial year 2006/7, around 50 million transactions were handled electronically by the department and the NAO calculates these e-services have generated savings of at least £33m.

The NAO said customers have benefited from these services due to increased availability and a reduction in turnaround time.

All the services achieved high levels of customer satisfaction, with 93 per cent of customers satisfied with the car tax service and 97 per cent saying the same about booking of theory tests.

The take-up of e-services has exceeded expectation in some cases, with 85 per cent of those upgrading their provisional driving licences to full licences using e-services.

But only four per cent of people applying for their provisional driving licence have done so electronically - significantly less than the 25 per cent forecast.

The DSA and DVLA also made good use of customer feedback when phasing in their services, according to the NAO.

Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, urged the department to "continue to evaluate current pilots and investigate ways of using the technology to further improve the services offered".