All right. From a functional merit point of view of the board, the board works and deals with the rules of justice and natural justice. So we're in the business of being fair. We're in the business of being even, impartial. If the bill of rights comes to us and we are told to do even better there, we will, because it's our business to make sure that these things are applied and done right by the vets.
To me, any enhancement of that proposition or system is a good thing. That's my view of how the bill of rights can affect us. It can challenge us to do our job even better. To me, it's an asset, it's something good, it's valid.
The second thing on the backlog, yes, at the time there was an assessment done of matters not necessarily pending at the board, but matters that are presently in the hands of, or are being handled by, the advocates. The tally at that time was some 8,500 cases.
These can be phone calls, these can be vets calling in and saying “I just got a decision on a given subject. Advocates, look at my problem, give me your opinion. Should I move ahead with this matter before the board?” I think what is important to know there is that in the 8,500 a lot of these matters will never make their way to the board because there's no reason to proceed to the board with the case itself.
Last fall we blitzed the caseload the BPA had. We succeeded in hearing and rendering 500 more decisions in a period of approximately three months, mostly by using single-member panels, and that is asking for the permission of the vet and the advocate that but one member hear the case so we could hold more hearings in various locations. With that, we succeeded in literally hearing 500 more cases.
As an aside, we plan on repeating the exercise, a variation thereof, and concentrating our work and hearings in the months of April, May, and June in areas where there are many files pending. We're going to increase our capacity for three months.
At last count, there were approximately 8,000 cases pending at the BPA. There are, of that number, 4,000 cases that are being studied, reviewed, and commented upon by the BPA for further action. It is not certain that these cases will proceed at the board because they may be counselled out or the veteran may decide not to proceed. There are 700 cases being prepared by the board, because you must know that once the BPA says “I'm ready to proceed, please prepare the file for me”, we in fact prepare the files for the advocates and the clients. There are approximately 700 of those, and there are another 1,500 that have been registered with the board for eventual hearing. So that is the amount of 8,000 cases added on to one another.
We made a dent in the fall with the blitz. We want to blitz again in the spring, hopefully. We have new members, whereby our complement is up to 26 members, so our hearing capacity will be up because of that.