Veterans Affairs Committee on May 8th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I'm going to have to ask for a fairly brief answer, if you don't mind, please.

[Charlotte Stewart]

Okay. Briefly, we get strong feedback from our veterans organizations. Bernard Butler has spoken to some of our engagements more recently with veterans organizations that extend past the traditional groups we have dealt with. They're very clear. They communicate directly with us.

The ombudsman plays a key role in this as well. The ombudsman's office is the spokesperson for many veterans. We get input from them about what makes the most difference.

Also, our client satisfaction survey does allow us to ask direct questions and get direct answers.

I just want to say that we've often come to this committee and we've said that we know where we need to improve, and I think that's important, because we've spoken to our critics and we hear them, and we've spoken to this committee about the fact that we need to listen and we have a lot of improvement to do. That's why the transformation agenda has been put in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for five minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today. We appreciate what you bring to the understanding of this committee.

I did want to pursue, though, the question that Mr. Stoffer introduced. That has to do with numbers of veterans.

We've heard—I believe it was from Mr. Hillier—that the number of traditional veterans is decreasing. World War II and Korean War vets are fewer in numbers. Savings were anticipated as a result of that. But this brief indicates that the number of Canadian Forces veterans who receive benefits and services from VAC is increasing. I would assume that these are the modern-day veterans and that their needs would be more complex and would demand a great deal more from Veterans Affairs Canada.

Could you square that circle in terms of what seems to be a contradictory statement? We have heard numbers indicating that since 2005 the numbers of veterans who have needed support have indeed increased.

[David Robinson]

I was trying to share with the committee our view, Mr. Chair, that we are noting the decline in our traditional vets, and I was trying to make the point that the number of new vets is increasing, so it's just to talk about the change in the overall population of our vets....

But I don't know if you have some metrics you can share, Mr. Butler.

[Bernard Butler]

I have some metrics here.

[David Robinson]

Thank you.

[Bernard Butler]

Mr. Chair, I have some metrics that I can share with you just briefly, based on forecasts. To put it in a context I think will make far more sense.

If we look at our traditional veterans today, we see that we're serving about 63,000 traditional veterans. By 2015 that's forecast to drop to 36,000 and, by 2020, to 13,000. On the other side of that ledger, however, for the CF veterans we're serving today, we have about 68,000. It's anticipated that it will be around 85,000 by 2015. By 2020, it will be in the vicinity of 99,000.

When you look at the totals, however, they will decline, because of the disproportionate ratio of traditional veterans to modern-day veterans. When you look at the overall numbers, we are forecasting a decline from roughly 208,000 veterans and their survivors as clients today to about 167,000 by 2020.

So it's a declining number of clients for the department and, as Charlotte indicated earlier, that creates a different challenge, because the complexity of the issues the modern-day veterans are coming forward with to Veterans Affairs is increasing. So our challenge is to find that balance between a resource framework that will support both the numbers—realistically—and the challenges. In a sense, that's what transformation is about— to take us to that end state.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Also in the brief, you talk about the five-year transformation, of course, and we know that there has been an announced layoff of 804 staff at VAC and 1,300 from Ste. Anne's Hospital. So that makes about 2,100 staff who will be lost over the next two or three years. Staff was at 4,100, so that will leave you with about 2,000. Do I have that number right? How many employees do you anticipate having in five years at the end of the transformation?

[David Robinson]

I don't have an end state figure for you. But you used the term “layoff”, and I should just point out for you that over the five years going forward, while we know that we're going to have to reduce the size of our organization by about 800 people, we are planning and focusing on trying to make sure that wherever we possibly can—and it won't work everywhere—we're meeting these numbers through attrition.

I should just tell you, for the benefit of the committee.... It's not a perfect lineup, but we have about 1,062 employees in the same period who will be eligible to retire. When you take note of that number, plus numbers of terms and casuals or people who just come and go from the department normally, we think we are going to be able to manage that reduction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much. We're over the five minutes.

We'll now go to Mr. Lizon for five minutes.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I also would like to welcome the witnesses. Thank you for coming here this afternoon.

I just want to follow up to clarify something, because a member mentioned the number of employees from Ste. Anne's Hospital to be laid off or terminated. Can you confirm the number? Is it correct? Is it incorrect?

[David Robinson]

I believe that during the same period we're talking about there is a total forecast of some 53 people who will be reduced at Ste. Anne's between now and 2015-16. I believe that's the number, but I might have to confirm that for you.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much.

In your presentation, you stated the five themes of the transformation agenda.

The first question I have, just for information, is on digital imaging and electronic records. What stage are you at, as far as electronic records go, at the present time? Are you somewhere in the beginning? Are you halfway through?

Who is doing the work? Are you doing it in the department? Are you subbing the work to someone? How is it done?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Digital imaging is one of the cornerstone technologies we put in place, which we spent a lot of time on last year, because it's one of the foundations for many of the changes that will happen in the future.

Right now, most of our records are in Library and Archives Canada. If you were released from the military, your medical records would have been sent there. In the past, of course, we had to request the paper version, make photocopies, ship them across the country, file them, sort them, and maintain them. Now we don't do that.

Library and Archives Canada has agreed, through a service level agreement with Veterans Affairs Canada, to provide this information directly to the Public Works site in Matane, Quebec. Public Works and Government Services Canada is the Government of Canada source and technology expert in this area. We're not investing any additional money in this, because the Government of Canada has already done it. They have a world-class facility. It has the highest privacy and security safeguards possible.

The records are shipped to Matane, Quebec, where they are scanned. They only scan what they need. Then, of course, the material is sent back to Library and Archives Canada. We've already scanned two million pages.

Once it's scanned, it goes right into our client service network, which is basically the network on the case manager's desk. It allows them to go online and look at the record instantly, as opposed to having to sort through paper and move paper around the country.

That's where we are. We have an agreement with Public Works and Government Services Canada. We pay them a fee for this service, which is very efficient for us. As I say, we're not going to duplicate an investment that's already been made.

I can speak to some improvements that have happened as a result of this. For instance, when I mentioned that our rehabilitation turnaround times have gone from four weeks to two, that's supported, in part, by the use of this technology. That's one example. Another example is that we've improved the turnaround time for a disability first application to 16 weeks. As many of you have heard from Mr. Hillier, we're going to go a lot further than that. But it will be supported by the use of this technology as well.

The good news is that we can have a disability application reviewed by an adjudicator in Charlottetown very quickly. When it's fully functional, it will shave weeks off the turnaround time. At the same time, a case manager can be adjudicating an application for rehab for the same client by simply looking at his or her screen. That was simply not possible in the past without a great deal of effort and photocopying in, frankly, a less secure system. Privacy has also been a cornerstone of our commitment to digital imaging.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

What percentage of your clients would already have electronic records? Everybody?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Frankly, those in the military who have joined quite recently, meaning new recruits and those who have not been in the military very long, will have mostly electronic records. Anyone who left the military five years ago or beyond that will have paper records, because DND is just now making the transition to the electronic capture of their data.

Therefore, for most of our clients, we'll still be dealing with paper records for a long time. As I say, if you join the military today, you're likely going to have only an electronic record. But you can see that for most of our clients, we'll have, today and for many years, a combination of paper and electronic records to deal with for a while.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Stewart.

The reason Mr. Stoffer came back to join us was that he knew Mr. Storseth was up next in the batting order. We're all looking forward to his five-minute intervention.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, our valued chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you very much for coming today. It has been very interesting.

I do have a couple of questions and I want to follow up on the questions Mr. Lobb asked. You talked about the fact that you had been listening and that the department has taken input from organizations across the country and also from different streams of organizations, different from those that we would maybe traditionally be taking input from. You noted that we do need to improve. My question would be, in what fields? Where are we looking? What is our priority to improve...?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Many of you have heard the criticism of the department that our processes are too cumbersome and they take too long, that it's hard to understand the procedures and even our applications can be very complicated, and that the decisions we render when we issue a letter sometimes are written in a way that is great for a bureaucrat but not so good for a client. So we're bringing a lot of effort to bear on simplification.

That really touches on a lot of areas. I think it's important, though, to focus on a couple of key pieces of this. Many of our processes were built up over many years. We added new pieces to programs and changed some legislation. As a result, our own internal procedures became bulky, cumbersome, and difficult.

We're systematically rebuilding them. We're doing business process re-engineering of all of our major programs, so we're cutting out steps. That allows us to actually remove work from the department. It's not about making people do more. It's saying that it took 20 steps to do this in the past, but business process re-engineering shows us a better way, and it's going to take four steps, so let's get it done. That's one thing.

Another area I would point to is the use of technology, because the reality is that as we move forward with Canadian Forces members releasing, they want to be able to receive service from the Government of Canada in the way they want—and they should be able to, as should all Canadians. That doesn't mean we're taking away face-to-face service for those who want that. What it means is that if you want to check your application at 10 o'clock at night, when your kids are in bed, then you can do that. We have to build technology.

It's allowing them the choice. We shouldn't be telling them how they're going to be served. They should be telling us, “Look, when I need really complex care, you had better be there,” and we will be there with our case managers. But if they work nine to five, they want to go home and be able to access services online. Technology will greatly assist with that.

The other thing is that we need to have Veterans Affairs Canada employees working on bases. That's key. That's a cornerstone. That's our commitment. That's where the forces want us to be. That's where they're most comfortable when they leave the military, and that's so important to them as they bridge into a transition to civilian life. They feel they will always have a connection to their base, to their reserve, to their company, and by putting our investment there, that's where I think we can serve them very well.

Those are just three quick areas.

[Bernard Butler]

Mr. Chair, I might just add one quick one. It's on the area of policy renewal. Policy renewal is the foundation on which our front-line staff administer programs.

As part of transformation, we are actively engaged in trying to fundamentally rework how we do policy and how we write policies, making them simpler, easier to understand, and more accessible to staff. We want to ensure that when you go into a policy you have linkages to business processes and directives, so that you can more quickly and more effectively advise and counsel veterans on what programs and benefits are available to them.

Policy renewal is another key platform or part of the transformation agenda.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you.

That sounds really great, especially the last one. I have two quick questions left for you. One is about serving people on the base. Do we have any concrete examples of this happening already or starting to happen?

Two, what's our feedback mechanism? How are we measuring if we're being successful in this or not? What is the deeming of success in this?

[Charlotte Stewart]

The Integrated Personnel Support Centres began to be established about two years ago. As the military would say, “We stood them up very quickly”. It was a commitment, and we moved very rapidly to do it. We gradually added employees to those locations. At this point, I can say that we have a stable workforce of about 100 on those bases.

You're asking how we would know if we're doing a good job. We do various things to measure that. In Charlottetown, we review files that would examine a real case and ask how this worked. We would ask if they got timely assistance and what kind of assistance they got.

We do know that over 1,000 members are getting service directly every month on these sites. That number is increasing. We're keeping stronger statistics around that, because we want to make sure that if we need to, we'll put more Veterans Affairs Canada employees there.

So we have different measurement systems. We measure every element of our case managers' workload. We have a commitment to ensure they have no more than 40 cases, which is seen as an industry norm, and that's for complex cases. We measure what type of complexity these cases reflect. As I say, we have a standard of 40, and our national average is well below that. It's just over 30 per case manager. We think we're getting certain things right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Ms. Stewart, I'm going to have to cut it there. We're way over, and that's the end of the first round.

I'm going to try to give a couple of quick questions to the NDP and then go back to the government.

Mr. Stoffer, please.

All of this is all going to have to be very brief.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Just for future reference, can you folks send to the committee how many veterans, RCMP members, and retired individuals are considered DVA?

Also, how many veterans are receiving a DVA benefit as of, say, a couple of months ago? How many of those veterans with benefits are still within the military? Because as you know, some military personnel receive the benefit.

Last, very quickly, how many DVA employees do you anticipate having at the end of this five-year transition period?

Thank you.

Manon, you have 12 seconds.