Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 21st, 2022

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you.

I am going to go to Mr. Swales, but just quickly first, the way I had understood what we learned in the first round of questioning is that from the time a veteran puts their first application in until they actually receive a decision, it is a median of about 48 weeks or 11 months. It's almost a whole year for veterans to get a decision, which is frankly appalling.

That's why I wanted to ask Mr. Swales this. If that's the median, what's the worst of the worst? I don't know if I want to know, actually, because 48 weeks is completely unacceptable. What is the longest of the long?

[Nicholas Swales, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The reason we use median is that when we used average, we got some numbers that didn't represent a really typical experience because at the long tail there are applications that have been there for a very long time—10 years or more.

Now, we had some doubts about whether those applications were perfectly correct, data-wise, but if you look at exhibit 2.4, you can see that at the long end, you're looking at 89 weeks before you hit that 80% level. You're starting to talk about applications that are closing in on two years. There were about 20% of them in the data when we looked at it. There's a very long tail in that data.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

As I said, I really almost didn't want to know, but I'm glad you enlightened us on that because it's just absolutely unacceptable.

Maybe you can shed some light here. I note that it was clear in a number of cases in the report that the standard that's been published on the website—that 16 weeks, 80% of the time—hasn't been met for seven years, which happens to coincide with the exact amount of time that the current government's been in power.

I look at that and wonder if I'm missing something here. Is there something else that changed seven years ago, other than the government, that would have caused a lack of ability to meet the service standards, as far as anything you've seen goes?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is that for Mr. Swales again?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

That's for Mr. Swales, yes.

[Nicholas Swales]

One of the things that changed in that intervening period of time was the number of applications, which increased substantially. We mention in the report that in the first five years of that period, essentially, the number of first applications increased by 75%. There were some changes in the parameters that were being dealt with by the department.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

They had more applications coming in, but they weren't able to find ways to deal with them. That's essentially what we're talking about here.

Can you maybe shed a bit of light on the last couple of years, in particular? This may be something that if you can't answer...I'll ask Mr. Ledwell if he has the information on him.

I know that at the minimum, some of the Veterans Affairs employees have been working from home over the last couple of years. I'm not sure if you've looked at this in terms of the numbers and percentages of employees who are working from home versus in their offices in 2020, 2021 and currently.

Did you notice any difference in productivity in the number of cases being processed by an employee during that period of time? Were there challenges that were faced, based on employees working from home, in processing applications that would have led to longer waiting times? Is that part of your study at all?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Swales, you have the floor.

[Nicholas Swales]

Mr. Chair, we didn't look at that level of granularity, if I could put it that way. We didn't look at the productivity of individual staff.

I will say that it's not obvious to us in the data that there was a significant effect—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm sorry. Could I interrupt you for one second?

I'm not asking you if you looked at individual staff. Obviously, there would be some ability to know the percentage of people who were working from home. Do you have any of those kinds of numbers? If not, maybe Mr. Ledwell would.

I'm curious whether we noticed any drop in productivity. I wonder if that helps to explain some of this.

[Nicholas Swales]

We didn't look at that in detail. It might be better to ask Mr. Ledwell.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Ledwell, would you be able to tell us, looking back at 2020, 2021 and currently, what percentage of employees were working from home versus in the office, and whether you've noticed a drop in productivity at all?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Give a very brief answer, please, Mr. Ledwell. I might have to come back to you on that if it's lengthy.

[Paul Ledwell]

Mr. Chair, productivity hasn't dropped. In fact, productivity has increased in terms of the number of files that have been addressed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. I appreciate it. That was nice and short.

I'm turning now to Ms. Bradford.

You have the floor, virtually, for five minutes, please. It's over to you.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for attending today.

I'm going to address these questions to the deputy minister.

If you had to choose one thing VAC could focus on that would have the highest impact on reducing the wait times for veterans, what would it be?

[Paul Ledwell]

That's a very good question.

I think the item I'm most focused on is how we can make this process direct and simple for both the veteran and the staff who are responding to the veteran's interests as they are brought forward. We've been placing a lot of focus on simplifying our application forms and being more digital. We have an increasing number of veterans who use something called the My VAC Account, which means that a lot of the documentation that they're bringing forward as part of their applications can be submitted digitally. That means that the applications are more complete and our staff have all of the material to be able to review them and ensure that the decision is consistent with the need of the veteran.

That's the area that I think makes it direct and simple for the veteran. It's digital in form and easier for our employees to make sure that the veteran's interests are met through that.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Can you please tell us about the announcement of $140 million to extend the VAC staff by an additional two years? It was made after the time period when you conducted your audit. What effect do you see this having on the backlog?

[Paul Ledwell]

Thank you for the question.

It has had a tremendous impact on the backlog, as we indicated earlier. Since the time of the audit, we've seen the backlog decrease by 41%. That is largely due to the work and effort of the staff who are addressing these matters and taking up the applications as they come forward from the veterans.

This is particularly staff.... I have my colleague Trudie MacKinnon here, who oversees this operation. The staff are very well versed in the issues that the veteran is bringing forward. They're able to provide the insight, make the decisions and ensure that the veteran is getting the level and type of support that they require.

If it's okay, I might ask my colleague to comment on that. She works very closely with these individuals.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay.

[Trudie MacKinnon, Acting Director General, Centralized Operations Division, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Thank you, Deputy.

Thank you for the question, Ms. Bradford.

As the deputy noted, certainly the impact of that has been significant. We've seen a reduction in the backlog of over 41% since the audit. In addition to that, we've seen a backlog reduction of just over 50% if you look at when we hired those people in the first place, which was in March 2020. That's when we received the money to do the hiring.

I will also say that one of our biggest challenges has been the term resources, and the attrition as a result of term resourcing, so with the extension of those resources to the end of 2024, we're confident that we will be able to stem some of that attrition that naturally happens when we're talking about term resources. That makes a big difference because those staff have been trained. They understand our systems. They understand our processes, and they continue to increase their productivity.

In fact, we are currently, year to date, meeting our service standard 56% of the time, whereas last fiscal year we were meeting it 46% of the time. We are seeing a sustained incremental progress on all fronts, whether it's the backlog, meeting the service standard, or attrition. That additional funding certainly had a big impact on the department and on our ability to continue processing the claims in a timely manner.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I have one more question.

The Auditor General indicated that that one of the problems was that there was a lack of a long-term staffing plan. Can you tell me what actions are being taken to deal with the long-term staffing situation so that you won't have these temporary workers just coming on for a finite period of time?

[Trudie MacKinnon]

Yes, the deputy noted, and I'll reiterate, that we certainly agree not only with the findings but with the recommendations of the Auditor General. With regard to staffing, we have been in a cycle of term funding now since 2018, receiving two-year term funding for these resources. As I've noted, it causes significant attrition as we get to the end of those terms. It becomes quite challenging, not only with our English resources but also with our French resources, who are in very high demand across the federal government and also in the private sector.

As we start to look at what we need going forward, we will be partnering with our colleagues at the RCMP to develop a long-term strategy to address this resourcing issue and to put options forward to look at longer-term, more permanent funding to keep the trained resources that we have on staff.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is the time.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for the Auditor General. I'm going to pick up where I left off earlier.

Thank you for your answer about the bottlenecks.

In your second report, you identified a very strong indicator that may reveal one of those bottlenecks: data collection. “The department’s data on how it processes benefits applications—and the organization of this data—was poor.”

“Poor” is a pretty strong word. According to your report, the department is unable to collect data properly and the data are poor.

Is there any reason to think things will improve?