Veterans Affairs Committee on June 10th, 2013

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

It's a self-assessment tool, but we just launched a pilot and in fact will be making an announcement tomorrow. Is the app a self-assessment app?

[Shane Carmody]

Yes, it is. It's similar to the U.S. veterans administration's PTSD Coach, which we've taken and Australianized. It is self-assessment and, if you like, a personal management tool that you can use.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I might just, with the time remaining, turn to appeals.

When a veteran applies for disability benefits, for instance from Veterans Affairs Canada, if he or she is unsatisfied with the response they've received from the department, they do have the opportunity to appeal to what is basically an appeals tribunal here in Canada. Do you have a similar model? Additionally, we provide them with free legal representation in their appeal against our own department. Could you tell me if you have anything like that?

[Neil Bayles]

Yes, we have an appeal system as well. In broad terms, after a decision is made, there is what we call the primary level, the first level within the department. A person who is unhappy with that decision can request a review of that decision. The first step is another internal DVA review by an officer at a more senior level than the primary decision-maker. That is what we would call a reconsideration or review of the initial decision.

Then if an applicant is still not happy with the outcome, they can appeal to the Veterans' Review Board, an independent statutory body that examines appeals. If they are not happy with the Veterans' Review Board decision, they have a right to appeal to what is called the administrative appeals tribunal. And then from there, if they're still not happy, they have no right of review on the merits of a case, but on a legal point of view they can go to the federal court if the matter revolves around a legal issue.

There is a legal aid system in Australia. There's a veterans' legal aid program, not administered by DVA, but administered by the Attorney-General's Department, which provides some legal aid assistance for certain veterans to take their appeals to the administrative appeals tribunal. We don't provide legal aid at the Veterans' Review Board; they don't have lawyers at the Veterans' Review Board.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, I'm out of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much

We now go to Mr. Casey, for five minutes, from the Liberal Party, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Carmody, at the outset you gave us some sense of the size of the department and the budget. I want to make sure that I heard you correctly.

You have about 320,000 clients, is that right?

[Shane Carmody]

Yes, that's correct.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

And a budget of about $12 billion?

[Shane Carmody]

About $12.5 billion this year, of which about $300 million is to run the department, and more than the remainder is actually for the provision of benefits to veterans.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Interesting. You have 50% more clients than we do, but your budget is 3.5 times ours. The cost to run your department is about the same, so good for you. It's quite an interesting comparison.

At our last session we heard from some officials from the United Kingdom. There was a stark difference in their disability award, so I'll talk to you about that for a moment. There's quite a debate raging in this country over a decision that was taken with the agreement of all parties some time ago to introduce the new Veterans Charter and to replace a pension system with a lump-sum payment as a disability award for a certain class of veterans.

Do you have something like that in your country, or are disability awards in the form of a pension as opposed to a lump sum?

[Neil Bayles]

Thank you for the question.

As I said before, we administer three pieces of legislation. The oldest piece of legislation we have is the Veterans' Entitlements Act, which provides lifelong disability pension pay as a fortnightly payment. It does not have any lump sums for disability pension.

However, the more recent acts have lump sum elements to them. The most recent military act, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, which came into being in 2004 for all service after that date, provides a choice for veterans to either take permanent impairment compensation as a fortnightly amount or to convert it to a lump sum based on their life expectancy. They have a choice. They can take a lump sum, or they can keep getting a fortnightly payment or take a combination. They can take, say, 25% as a lump sum and keep the rest as a fortnightly pension. It goes by quarters—25%, 50%, 75% or 100%—when converting to a lump sum.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Is there a legislated maximum lump sum?

[Neil Bayles]

Yes, there is. The maximum lump sum under the MRCA for permanent impairment is about $420,000. That's if you convert the pension to [Technical difficulty--Editor].

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

That's interesting. In this country it's $300,000 and in Britain it's $900,000.

All governments in recent years have gone through some austerity measures, and we also had quite a debate in this country as to whether the Department of Veterans Affairs' budget should be included or exempted from the austerity measures. Did you have a similar debate, and how did you resolve it?

[Shane Carmody]

Within Australia over the last few years, the government has imposed an efficiency dividend across departments, varying from 1.5% to 3%. That dividend applies only to our operating costs, so it applies only to the $300 million. It doesn't apply to the administered amounts, and what we've had to do essentially is to cut it off. We do not wish to reduce services, and therefore we needed to find ways to make ourselves more efficient.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Would that include closing offices?

[Shane Carmody]

We haven't done that. We have reduced our footprint in particular offices and we've taken other austerity measures such as reducing travel costs and increasing the number of video conferences. Some of these measures have been taken for us given the fact that the money has been removed from our budget and we've therefore been required to create efficiencies.

Thus far we've been pretty successful in maintaining services but it is very challenging.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We'll now go to Mr. Hayes, for five minutes, please.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bayles, in your opening comments you spoke about the rehabilitation and support division with its $6 billion annual budget and three components which are compensation, income support, and rehabilitation. I'd like to focus a little bit on the rehabilitation component.

First, with regard to the value of it, as a percentage of the $6 billion, how much is attributable to rehabilitation?

I'm going to keep going with my questions and you can jot these down. I'll try to get them all into one shot.

You mentioned a number of programs. They were, I believe, the medical component, the social component, and the rehabilitation program.

I just want you to expand a little bit on the three components of the rehabilitation program and give me some sense statistically of how long veterans might spend in the program, and some ideas as to its success rate. What have you established that as being, and how are you actually making out?

[Neil Bayles]

I probably want to take on-notice your question about the expenditure on rehabilitation and provide you with that answer separately, but it is not a very big component of the $6 billion. Essentially, what we do is provide a program whereby we sit down with a veteran and look at how we can improve his or her quality of life and ability to get back to work.

The focus is primarily on vocational rehabilitation, that is, if the veteran is not able to work or is restricted from working full-time, we focus very heavily on how we can get the veteran back into some paid work. That involves our working with a rehabilitation provider who is external to the department, and the rehabilitation provider will be aware of the capabilities and skill set of the veteran. We'll then establish what might be a good potential vocational option for the veteran. It may be that the veteran can walk into a job, or the veteran may need some training in order to progress to an employment category.

The other two components, the social and psychological components, are focusing on whether there are other barriers to the veteran's ability to work. It may well be that there is a need to provide some assistance to the veteran in dealing with particular issues they have around, for example, coping with stress, getting to sleep, and their family situation, or housing, or whatever. We look at options in order to remove any possible barriers to their being able to work.

The medical component is the health care of the veteran. It can be very important that we continue to provide medical care. The rehabilitation plan that we develop for any veteran has all three components covered, so it's a holistic view of the veteran and the veteran's needs. It might be a combination of services that we will provide to the veteran: medical, psychosocial, and vocational, in order to support the veteran and his or her family.

If a veteran is unable to work, then the focus will be on how we can improve the veteran's quality of life so that the impact of their condition is minimized and they can operate as best as possible in the world.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I want to ask one question on skills training and education, the vocational component, in terms of the services you provide for skills training and education. What might those consist of?

[Neil Bayles]

They may involve a short vocational course in a college, like a further education arrangement. We might pay for the course. We would monitor the veteran's progress throughout, so it might be vocational or not. For example, it might be security work, or developing a particular trade, or it might be that the veteran simply needs a top-up of their existing skill set. We do, on occasion, support tertiary study in an institution, if the veteran is capable of undertaking that study and we can see that it would lead to a job opportunity for the veteran. For example, we might pay for a veteran to undergo a graduate course, if we see that it would lead ultimately to a job for the veteran, and if the veteran is capable of undertaking that course of study.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you, very much.

We will now go to Ms. Mathyssen, for five minutes, please.