Who is in charge of  your MOT ?

There are two bodies responsible for how an MOT works ands the quality of it. They are :

The Government.

From the start the British Government decided that the annual vehicle check should be carried out by locally situated repair and service garages - a local 'MOT Testing Station' that would provide a convenient service. However, the Ministry of Transport were very keen to make sure that there was a uniform set of MOT Testing standards throughout the country and so they insisted that if a garage wished to become a Testing Station that they used only approved equipment and also carried out the Tests to a set of standards laid down by the Department of Transport.

This system of complinance and quality, with the Government in overall charge of MOT Testing is what is place today, however, it is the responsibility of an Executive Agency called VOSA (Vehicle & Operator Services Agency) whose Chief Executive is responsible directly to Parliament, and also to the the Secretary of State for Transport.

The MOT Garage.

The local MOT garage carries the responsibility for the quality of day to day testing. The garage becomes what is known as the Authorised Examiner (AE); authorised by the Vehicle Inspectorate to carry out MOT Tests on their behalf. In turn the AE has the power to nominate specially trained individuals to carry out MOT Testing on customers' cars. So the official name for an MOT Tester is Nominated Tester (NT) because he or she has been nominated by the AE. It should be noted that this is why it is impossible for aspiring young MOT Testers to go to college and learn the profession - they have first to be trained at a Testing Garage and then nominated by the AE. An aspiring Tester also has to have either a certain minimum formal qualification or sit a special examination before then going on a two day course set up by VOSA to, as they say 'calibrate his or her skills'.

So your local testing station is in charge of the tests they do, but the Government, through VOSA is responsible overall for the general quality of MOT Testing.
To check the qulaity and compliance with laid down governemt regulations they have about 100 experts called Vehicle Examiners who spend much of their time monitoring the performance of NTs and AEs, which is not many peole considering there over 18500 garages and nearly 50000 testers within the market place !
It's the Government's MOT - not the garage.

At the end of the day it is down to the Government of the day to ensure (by testing the MOT garages) that shoody workmanship or any sharp practice does not happen and that people who have a complaint against a certain garage have someone to turn to when they need to !

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