Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this session.
It's an honour to share this table with the senior leadership of the Royal Canadian Legion, and it's a pleasure for me. It's the first time I've met Mr. Moore.
My name is David Robinson. I am the Director General of Transformation at Veterans Affairs. I am joined by my colleague Maureen Sinnott, the Director of Strategic and Enabling Initiatives.
We are here today to discuss the department's cutting red tape initiatives, which are a key part of our departmental transformation agenda that I had an opportunity to describe in my first visit with you back in May.
When I describe transformation, I refer to the department's deliberate, project-based work-plan to fundamentally change the way we do business and measure our progress along the way. From the point of view of veterans and their families—and this is the ultimate measure of performance—it means the department will cut red tape, veterans will get help faster, and we will provide them with better information in terms of both quality and accessibility.
My colleague Maureen is going to describe some specific recent initiatives that I believe really illustrate how we're doing this and how these changes are benefiting veterans and their families.
Before we talk about specific initiatives, I'd like to say a little more about how the department is approaching this important work. We are midway into the second year of a five-year work-plan. We've built a solid foundation in the first 18 months of our transformation. Improvements are building and will build over time. We are measuring and reporting progress along the way. We're involving staff and stakeholders.
Even though we still have three and a half years to go to complete our plans and before we can say the department is transformed, the improvements made so far are starting to make a difference. Since we started this improvement effort 18 months ago, turnaround time for disability benefits has been reduced by 30%, and the time taken to make decisions on rehabilitation benefits has been reduced by 50%. We are testing additional processes that we hope will result in continued improvement.
We have reduced the number and length of forms veterans have had to complete to obtain many of the health benefits provided by the department. We continue to work to improve response time on our national call centre network. We're improving our online services. As well, the department will use new technology to provide better tools and training for case managers so that veterans continue to receive the best support possible.
This is good progress for today, but we're focusing on key improvements that we'll put in place for tomorrow. Our goals for the rest of this fiscal year include: having at least 80% of treatment benefit transactions processed through cost-effective reimbursement systems, reducing staff involvement; rendering decisions on disability benefits within 12 weeks; providing veterans, employees, and suppliers with 24-7 access to Internet-based services; and instituting digital imaging technologies to replace our current cumbersome system of mailing paper-based records back and forth.
Veterans Affairs has an incredibly dedicated workforce. I know that they want to work for a department that is on the leading edge of service delivery, one that does business in the most efficient and logical manner, and one that is free of red tape for veterans and their families. The improvements we will make will enable employees to work more efficiently and effectively.
We are only in the second year of planned service improvement. We realize that a lot of hard work lies ahead.
I've been asked what success looks like. To answer the question, I'm going to use Minister Blaney's words, when he says that we will make life simpler for veterans; we'll reduce the paperwork and red tape and provide veterans greater access to the services of the department, where and when it is needed.
Thank you again, Mr. Chair.
I will now give the floor to Maureen Sinnott.