Thank you.
In paragraph 6.77, the Auditor General found:
We also found that the Tribunal did not decide appeals in a timely manner and that the period that appellants had to wait for a decision continued to rise. The tribunal explained that this was partly due because of the Social Security Tribunal Regulations which required appellants and the Department both to indicate they were ready to proceed before the Tribunal could hear appeals.
In 6.96, the Auditor General found that only in December 2014 did the tribunal establish performance expectations of 10 decisions per month for each tribunal member.
We also found that the average number of decisions tribunal members actually competed was significantly lower, 6.5 decisions per month in 2014-15.
In 6.97, the Auditor General found:
Furthermore, we found that CPPD appeals that could be summarily dismissed, such as when an appellant did not meet the CPP contributory requirements, were still taking a long time to resolve. Of the 137 appeals that were summarily dismissed in 2013-14 and 2014-15 fiscal years, almost half, 66 appeals, took more than 800 days to be concluded.
These instances cannot be blamed on the fact that there were backlogs handed down or that there was a scarcity of resources. This is a measurement of the use of resources that were in the possession of the Social Security Tribunal. It indicates that the members of the tribunal are not concluding an adequate number of cases per month, that they are off the Social Security Tribunal's own target by 35% per member, and that cases that should be obvious and easy to dismiss—that is, someone who hasn't made enough contributions or doesn't meet the age requirement—cases for which there is no medical or complicated legal interpretation required—are taking 800 days to be concluded.
The deputy minister has taken responsibility for the department's role in this matter. Will you, Madam Brazeau, take responsibility for any of the problems that are associated with this backlog?