22 February 2002
The auditor said the DVLA had collected more than £5.2bn in duty, nearly £200m up on the previous year, and was making 'good progress' in tackling vehicle excise duty evasion. It added that the improvement was largely due to the agency's high-profile enforcement policies, including wheel-clamping and the introduction of an 11-vehicle fleet of automated number plate readers.
More than 360,000 motorists were persuaded to relicense their vehicles as a result of the campaign carried out in conjunction with police. The agency clamped more than 70,000 unlicensed vehicles in the year – and disposed of 36,000, most of them by crushing.
Auditor general Sir John Bourn also praised the DVLA for dealing 'satisfactorily' with the change to differential charging bands introduced by Chancellor Gordon Brown to encourage smaller cars that emit lower levels of carbon dioxide.
'I commend the agency's staff for their efforts in processing well over 1 million applications for rebates of duty from hauliers and private motorists in just a few months without jeopardising the achievement of the agency's other key strategic targets,' he said.
PFfeb2002
