Proposals being developed by my Department for the regulation and quality assurance of driving instruction will involve a test of the competence of individual instructors. A working group comprising representatives of the Department and of instruction interests has formulated the design of the standards that a driving instructor must meet.
The original proposals had envisaged that driving instructors who were members of driving instructor organisations recognised by the Department as meeting appropriate quality standards would be exempt from the test of competence. Assessment of the driving instructor organisations would have been based on the organisation seeking accreditation with the national accreditation board, which would have had regard to the procedures and personnel that the organisation had in place to assess driving instructors.
As already indicated in this House during the Second Stage debate on the Driver Testing and Standards Authority Bill 2004, it is now proposed that the Driver Testing and Standards Authority will be responsible for the registration of driving instructors. I am considering what arrangements will be put in place to oversee implementation of the driving instructor standard in the context of the establishment of the authority.