It is start to finish time, Mr. Cuzner.
If I may go back a bit in time, in about 1995 there was a major pension reform passed, with legislative change, in Parliament. It was undertaken then in the Department of Veterans Affairs because the turnaround times from start of application to actual award for first application were averaging eighteen months. The target set down at that time was a nine-month target, so it remained to be seen whether the department could actually achieve that. In fact, in 1996 when that was introduced fully, the department began almost immediately to meet that target.
Over the years, we've seen a tremendous increase in the amount of pension applications. At the time, we may have been averaging around 8,000 or 9,000 pension applications. Last year, we were over 28,000. In spite of that increase over the years, we have taken a number of measures to improve our productivity, such as the use of new technology and some SWAT teams that have been put together to analyze it. We couldn't reduce turnaround times in other ways that had been successful. So we've actually reduced the turnaround time to its current state in spite of that increase, and it has really been a remarkable experience within the department.
You were probably thinking about this, Mr. Cuzner. At one time, we had a service standard that required that all the information be available. With that information available, we were making a commitment that it would take us four months. We've decided to go back to this other standard simply because there really isn't anybody accountable for collecting that information unless we take the accountability to help the veteran to get it. We wanted to reflect it in the spirit of someone being accountable for the whole process, to reflect that in our turnaround time for official service standards.