Perhaps. Certainly, casework size is a debate that has been going on for many years in the field of providing social services in provincial systems and in other federal systems. It also depends on the kind of service we want to offer. That often will determine the ratio of cases per worker. In some models they offer very superficial services, which is not in our case, which means that caseloads can be quite significant. In other cases the complexity is quite high. In those cases the ratio goes down. The ratio of clients per worker goes down when the complexity is increased. It really depends on the kinds of services we offer. At Veterans Affairs we offer fairly complex services, so the ratio we're aiming for is, in my view, very adequate and certainly allows our workers to complete the work they need to do with veterans.
On May 7th, 2013. See this statement in context.