A review of DVLA’s functions has been carried out by Mary Reilly a non-executive Director at the Department of Transport and it takes for some interesting reading.
A snippet for you – In 2012/13 the DVLA sold around 250,000 registration marks, collected some £68 million and processed over 750,000 transfer and retention applications.
To view the whole review
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/283795/review-of-dvla.pdf