DVLA was established as an Agency in 1990 but it has been responsible for managing the centralised vehicle and driver registers since the early 1970s when the individual local authorities’ records were consolidated. It became a Trading Fund in April 2004.
The Swansea headquarters has two sites and there is a network of 40 local offices, and three continuous registration enforcement offices across Great Britain (GB). Post Office Counters Ltd acts as an agent and manages over 80 per cent of the vehicle relicensing transactions at some 4,600 post offices throughout GB. DVLA is responsible for vehicle registration and the collection and enforcement of Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) in Northern Ireland (NI) and acts through the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland (DVLNI), an Agency sponsored by the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. DVLNI is responsible to its department directly for driver licensing in NI.
The majority of Agency staff, currently over 7,000 (some 6,600 full time equivalents), are responsible for meeting its statutory core activities. These are to maintain an accurate record of those who are entitled to driver various types of vehicles (39m currently), together with a register of all vehicles entitled to travel on public roads (32m live vehicle records). These are used as a basis for law enforcement.
In addition to managing large databases the Agency issues some 7m driving licences, 9m registration certificates and responds to more than 24m enquiries from the police and customers on driver licensing and vehicle registration issues each year. It is responsible for the collection of some £4.9bn in VED on behalf of the Treasury and helps ensure the public is protected from untaxed, uninsured and unsafe driving. DVLA has one of the most successful “wider markets” initiatives in Government with the Sale of Marks (SoM) scheme resulting in sales of some 220,000 registration marks each year.
