When the state government sold off VicRoads’ licensing and registration division it promised better service, but government documents show the opposite happened – intentionally.
Budget papers reveal that key VicRoads’ service targets were quietly reduced when it was privatised in a bumper $7.9 billion deal two years ago.
VicRoads employees say customers are getting worse service since privatisation. Credit: Joe Armao
Now, the impact of that is becoming clear: wait times have ballooned, customer satisfaction has plunged and staff say overworked colleagues are quitting in droves and not being replaced.
Staff shortages have forced customer service centres across the state to shut their doors to walk-in customers over the past 12 months, while learner drivers now face waits of up to 10 weeks to sit a driving test.
Several employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their employment, told The Sunday Age that customer service was suffering as their workloads increased drastically under the joint venture.
Service centre staffing levels have been cut and experienced workers who burnt out and resigned were either not replaced, or their roles were filled by temporary agency staff with limited training, they said.
VicRoads’ CBD customer service centre closed to walk-in customers in July due to staff shortages. Credit: Joe Armao
“When customers come through the door they complain about the time-wasting and that these people [the agency staff] don’t know what they’re doing, which isn’t their fault, but we do cop a lot of verbal abuse,” one employee said.
“They had these big plans for better services and they’ve spent millions of dollars upgrading programs, but they’ve made it worse.”
In 2022, the state Labor government promised motorists would get better service from VicRoads when it partly privatised the agency through a joint venture with Aware Super, Australian Retirement Trust and Macquarie Asset Management. Under the deal, the group was given VicRoads’ licensing, registration and custom number plates services for the next 40 years.
But budget papers show that VicRoads’ service targets were cut when it was privatised – to align with the “joint venture service-level agreement”. Its customer satisfaction target dropped from 85 to 80 per cent, and its timely service target was cut from 80 per cent of customers to 70 per cent.
Now, government annual reports and budget papers show that customer satisfaction with VicRoads’ registration and licensing has fallen from 94 per cent in the 2021-22 financial year to 87 per cent in 2023-24.
Only 71 per cent of customers at VicRoads offices were served within 10 minutes last year – down from 75 per cent in 2022. It’s the worst result in 12 years, excluding the COVID-19 affected years of 2020 and 2021.
VicRoads documents seen by The Age show that some service centres were tracking well below the 70 per cent timeliness target in October.
Other documents show that VicRoads’ Exhibition Street CBD office had to close to walk-in customers and only serve those with appointments on July 12 this year due to “resourcing challenges”.
Sunbury, Sale, Shepparton, Bairnsdale, Wodonga and Echuca offices have all also closed at least once over the past 12 months because of staff shortages.
Employees said customers were also facing longer waits to book a driving test because there were fewer testers and appointments available.
As of this week, driving tests at VicRoads’ Carlton and Broadmeadows offices were booked out for the next seven weeks. At Deer Park and Bundoora, the wait was two months, while in Frankston the next available test was in early January – 10 weeks away.
“It used to be around about a month to five weeks to get a driving test, [but] they haven’t got enough testers,” one employee said.
VicRoads has also cut appointment times for vehicle registration checks – from 30 minutes to 20 minutes for heavy vehicles and machinery, for example – resulting in more errors and appointments running behind schedule.
“It’s more about making profits now than community service,” the staff member said.
A VicRoads spokesperson said the agency had met its customer service targets since the joint venture was established – and when the benchmarks were lowered.
Office wait times had reduced despite increased customer inquiries over the past 12 months, the spokesperson said.
“We provide excellent employment conditions for our workers,” the spokesperson said, while declining to answer questions about staffing levels.
But Australian Services Union (ASU) secretary Tash Wark said VicRoads workers were facing unacceptable attacks on their conditions and wages as a result of the privatisation.
VicRoads had refused to negotiate with the ASU over a new enterprise bargaining agreement and instead put an offer directly to workers, Wark said.
Employees rejected the offer last month because it failed to adequately increase pay rates for driving testers, cut some penalties and did not include an extreme weather safety clause.
“It’s clear now the partners want to attack wages and conditions and sideline the union’s involvement in standing up for our members,” Wark said.
The union has commenced a vote among VicRoads members to potentially take strike action while they negotiate a new pay deal.
A spokesman for Minister for Roads Melissa Horne said the joint venture was making “significant investments to improve and upgrade technology”, with more than 1.2 million Victorians downloading a digital driving licence.
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