Ms Alison Coleman:

I will take this question. The temporary staffing model was never going to be a silver bullet to solve the problem of waiting times. It helped at a point in time. The first intake of temporary testers was after the unaccompanied learner driving legislation was introduced in late 2018. We took on 67 temporary testers at that stage. It was quite sudden when the legislation was introduced and we reacted with a temporary campaign. Those testers were held just as Covid hit in 2020. Afterwards there were more temporary contracts because we felt it was a temporary issue. The demand modelling was not quite accurate enough to tell us this was a persistent and consistent demand. The data we were getting showed it was as a result of legislation or Covid. Even over the course of 2023 and 2024 we worked with the Department to make sure it knew that what we could see coming was persistent, that we were going to seek permanent sanction and that we would need its support. This took a lot of analysis and work to get through. We submitted it in June and the rest is history.