Latest Press Releases
| CONCERN AT DVLA CLOSURES ANNOUNCEMENT |
 |
 |
 |
| Thursday, 15 December 2011 00:00 |
|
SNP MPs have called for assurances that there will be a ‘genuine consultation’ following this week’s announcement by the UK Department for Transport of plans to close 39 regional DVLA offices, including five in Scotland, with the loss of more than 1200 jobs. The DVLA’s Inverness Office provides services for a wide area, including Moray, and there is concern about the potential loss of yet another service, following the debacle of the local motorcycle test centre in Elgin, which is now to return after a change of heart by the government. In recent years Moray and the Highlands have seen the loss of local HMRC tax offices, including in Buckie and Elgin. Commenting on the DVLA proposals Moray MP, the SNP’s Angus Robertson, said: “Just weeks before Christmas this a bitter blow for the DVLA workforce and we must have a guarantee that this is a genuine consultation by the Department for Transport. “ The closure of all five of Scotland’s regional DVLA offices would be totally unacceptable, throwing away years of staff knowledge and expertise, and diminishing important services which are paid for by local taxpayers here in Moray and across Scotland. “ Talk, by Ministers, of making more transactions available online is not an answer for people in rural areas who do not have access to super-fast broadband, or in some cases broadband at all, so the centralisation of services would hit areas like Moray especially hard. “ When people want services delivered closer to home it is wrongheaded for the UK Government to keep centralising services. We hear a lot of talk about the big society and localism from the Coalition Government, but we have to see much more evidence of decentralisation and dispersal when it comes to jobs by the Coalition Government.” “ UK Ministers must think again over this ill-timed and ill-conceived announcement.” |
