Next Generation Testing (NGT) pilot for heavy vehicle testing
Published 12 March 2014
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
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1. About Next Generation Testing (NGT)
The aim of NGT is to provide flexible testing to you and your customers. The pilot will take place in South Wales, Herefordshire and parts of the West Midlands.
2. Pilot structure
During the pilot you will notice changes to the job tiles and responsibilities of our staff. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) Inspectors will now be called Vehicle Standard Assessors (VSA) and Specialist Vehicle Standard Assessors (SVSA).
Station or Local Testing Managers have become either a Network Business Manager (NBM) or Testing Network Managers (TNM).
The NBM is responsible for managing the business relationship with ATFs to ensure effective testing service provision - providing advice and support to their network of ATFs. TNM are responsible for a team of SVSAs and VSAs testing within the ATF network.
3. NGT pilot rollout
Your NBM will be able to confirm your commencement date and any other special arrangements for the pilot NGT pilot brochure.
4. ATF payments to DVSA
Bank transfers into your Pre Funded Account (PFA), whether BACS or CHAPS, will normally take one working day to reach your PFA. For example, if you make a bank transfer which arrives at our Bank account on a Wednesday it will not be credited to your PFA until Thursday. Similarly, if you make a bank transfer which arrives on a Friday, it will not normally be credited to your PFA until Monday (or Tuesday with Bank Holidays).
If you need to make an urgent payment to your PFA, we accept debit/credit card payments which are immediately credited to your account, and can be made online or by phoning the DVSA payment centre in Swansea.
The DVSA centre managing the work for the NGT pilot is based in Chadderton (Manchester). Please direct all communications to the Chadderton office, not your local Goods Vehicle Testing Station (GVTS), and cheque payments will need to be sent to:
5. Scheduling test bookings
5.1 Confirmed testing periods
As part of the annual booking process, you will have already received your confirmed testing days for the calendar year 2014. DVSA appreciates that since then, some of your confirmed reservations may already have changed or been cancelled. DVSA assures you that until you are ready to take advantage of the changed service offer, provided through the pilot, its commitment to you will not change.
Requests for additional testing, changes or cancellation of existing days will be handled by our Centralised Support Team using a similar form to that previously used for the annual booking process 2014. Your Network Business Manager will provide further information as to when this will come into effect.
5.2 Testing day management
The pilot will run from March 2014. Your Network Business Manager will update you once your start date is confirmed. From the 17 March 2014 to the 27 April 2014, the NGT pilot will service your existing testing days as agreed through the annual booking process, factoring in any cancellations or changes (compliant with the ATF contract) that you have confirmed with the local testing manager.
Testing days required from the 28 April onwards will be confirmed in line with the enhanced service. In order to take advantage of this you will be able to make requests from the 17 February onwards, by completing the request form and sending it to the NGT- Scheduling mailbox. As this is a pilot, we will confirm as applicable your requests - providing 12 weeks notice. This will allow us to evaluate the pilot and enable us to make any changes identified and improve the service.
Please note, requests for testing days from the 28 April to the 1 June will have an 8 week notice period due to the pilot start date. Your Network Business Manager will have further information on this.
6. Contingency planning
If, for any reason your ATF is unable to open for testing, you should immediately tell the scheduling team by phoning 01792 454 528.
7. Next steps
This is a new concept that needs to be proven for DVSA and our ATF partners. DVSA and the ATFs in the pilot will evaluate the lessons learned before commencing roll out across Great Britain.
This will lead to increased flexibility of booking times of ATF providers and other enhanced services. The rollout will be coordinated to ensure maximum efficiency for DVSA and ATF clients.
Your involvement in this pilot is integral to shaping the future of NGT. Therefore we would like your feedback so that we can evaluate the pilot. Please let us know what is working well, what you would like to see that would be useful and what we can improve on.