Afternoon All, long time lurker, first time poster.
In Summer 2021 I was granted funding to obtain my Cat C licence (something called a Low Value Procurement grant). I effectively had to make a business case for getting the licence, the DWP began a bidding process for someone to provide the training, an agency won the bid and provided the training via a local driving school.
Long story boring, I have failed two tests and exhausted the allocated DWP funding. The agency have quoted me 499GBP for a retest including a two hour refresh drive, probably within 4 weeks. The school won’t take a cheaper booking from me directly for fear of the agency finding out and cancelling their contract.
Should I bite the bullet and try to scrape together the 500 quid, ignore the skill-fade, putting it down to experience? Or should I contact another local school and try to get a sooner & cheaper retest, risking having to relearn a new route and vehicle?
I understand that many people will have spent thousands getting to where I am now and I am grateful for the opportunity the funding provided. However, my experience with the agency has been terrible and I resent them getting my cash. I appreciate I have probably answered my own question but am keen to hear what folk who have been/seen/bought tshirts think.
The chances of succeeding with another trainer at a cost lower than £500 aren’t great tbh. But neither is it impossible. I would feel inclined to stay put.
I think a cheaper sooner test would be better if you can find it. If you use the same test centre there won’t be different routes to learn.
It seems to be a bit of a lottery whether you pass based on my experience of my trainer completely slating a candidate behind his back who went on and passed.
As you have failed twice, passing the third time doesn’t look promising.
I suggest you get a supermarket delivery van driver job to get some practice driving commercial vehicles and save up the £1,500 or so that it would take to do Class 2 from scratch at a better school, such as the forum sponsor.
Sometimes you can be throwing good money after bad.
The school have been in touch with a cheaper & sooner solution so I’ll bite the bullet and stay with them for a final retest.
I do take the point about retraining with a better school though. I felt the four days I had were pretty poor, although likely due to the “lowest bidder wins” approach to DWP training provision.
However, I feel pretty confident and competent (having now accumulated about 22 hours driving) so will crack on and all going well pass third time (lucky).
