Almost 100,000 people with medical conditions have waited more than a year for a new driving licence.
A damning report says the DVLA is failing to deal with “medical licensing” decisions on time after a vast Covid backlog.
From April 2020 to September this year, 36% of medical licensing cases took longer than 90 working days - and 6% took longer than 250 working days.
That means about 91,000 “medical licensing” cases since April 2020 were delayed by more than a year, the National Audit Office said.
Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier said the DVLA was “unprepared” for Covid and “ordinary citizens paid the price” with “unacceptable delays”.
Applications could grind to a halt again this winter - as union chiefs announce on Thursday if DVLA staff have decided to strike over pay.
The Public and Commercial Services union will announce the result of a mass ballot across 214 government departments including the Passport Office and DWP.
The backlog mounted during a dispute about how to safely return their Swansea HQ during Covid.
Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris told the Mirror: "The people involved in doing the cases are doing the best they can but the system is flawed.
"The way they dealt with [Covid] when it first happened was appalling. We had senior managers telling people they had to be in work who were afraid of being in the office."
Ms Harris warned it will be a “travesty” if DVLA jobs are cut in next week’s Autumn Statement.
“I worked in the post room aged 16 in my first job out of school. There aren’t many people here who haven’t worked there,” she said.
“It’s based in the middle of a social housing area. The disposable income of people working for the DVLA is essential for the community.”
The backlog is mostly in paper-based applications - which include people with medical conditions.
Before Covid the target had been to deal with 90% of medical decisions within 90 days.
In February 333,000 such applications were in progress, triple the total before Covid, the National Audit Office said.
By September this backlog had dropped to 207,000.
But most online applications are completed within three working days.
Some people can continue driving while their case is processed. But they must “meet medical standards of fitness to drive” - and the exemption runs out a year after they send their form.
The DVLA insisted “our online services worked well throughout the pandemic” with more than 24million licences issued since April 2020.
It claimed nearly half of outstanding medical cases had outstanding queries waiting with a third party, like the driver or a GP.
A spokesperson added: “COVID-19 restrictions in Wales meant fewer staff were able to work on site to process the 13 million items of mail we receive a year.
“All standard paper applications were back to normal turnaround times earlier this year.
“There are some delays in processing applications where drivers have told us of a medical condition, but in the majority of cases applicants can carry on driving unless they have been told not to by a medical professional.”
