Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Following up on my colleague Mr. Casey's intervention, he referred to a deficit reduction plan. We also have to realize that in seven years, the budget has changed. I believe the budget now is certainly higher than it was in 2015. I will just make that note for the record.

In any event, one thing I was struck by when I was looking at this report was the data. We are dealing with what I would call highly quantifiable issues.

What I mean is that the date somebody applies is quantifiable. If it's April 1, you know it's April 1. The date that somebody's file is completed is quantifiable. If it's May 30, we know it's May 30. With regard to the date the decision is made, you understand what I mean when I say the completion date. We'll call it that.

With all that in mind, how is it that we don't have good data?

Again, I'm looking at this from the outside, looking in. How is it that we don't have good data when what we're tracking is so simple?

[Karen Hogan]

You're absolutely right. A date is a very quantifiable thing. As long as there is no human error in inputting that date, it's a very easily measurable system.

An adjudication process goes through many steps. When you're trying to understand what elements within a process are causing delays or slowdowns such that you can't meet the service standards, you need to be able to measure as something moves through all of the steps in the process. That's where the quality of the data starts to break down. The department doesn't know how long something might sit in one area or what's causing the delay.

We use data as a real general term. It's about having information about where the file is. If you can put a tracker on it, finding out where it goes, when it slows down and when it doesn't slow down, it would help you to identify measures to target the slowdowns.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

If I understand you correctly, we know what happens at the beginning and the end, but we really don't know what happens in the middle.

[Karen Hogan]

You know when they decide that it's complete, and then we start calculating. There's some confusion in the middle, absolutely. It's a messy middle. Let's call it that.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm even more despondent, and here's why. We don't really know what's causing—correct me if I'm wrong—the issues, right? We've put money into this. It doesn't seem to have worked. Hopefully, we'll have more efficiency.

However, we don't know where the lag time is. Is it waiting for documents? Is it waiting for somebody to look at something after documents are received? That's the source of my despondency.

Does that make sense? We don't even know what's causing these delays in the middle, so how are we to ameliorate them?

[Karen Hogan]

The department did an external review, and they identified some areas that they thought were problem causes. That's why there were 16 actions that they were trying to implement to improve the processing times.

The issue is that they didn't do a very good job at tracking whether this one initiative improved the processing time, and then whether this other one maybe counteracted that and went the other way? There was a lot put in place without being able to know whether or not it made things better.

I think it's a few things. We're not really sure what initiatives improved or slowed down.... We couldn't say, and neither could the department.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Are we still at that point today, then, where we still don't know?

[Karen Hogan]

We were at that point in September 2021, yes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

When I say today, I mean as of the date of your report.

The point I'm trying to get at is this: I'm quite worried, moving forward, because we have identified that we have a problem, the backlog. From a moral standpoint this backlog is too big, as in people are waiting too long, and from a policy standpoint having the backlog means we don't meet the standard we expect to meet, which is 16 weeks in 80% of the cases.

You also have an efficiency problem with retaining workers, and then on top of that, we don't really know what is causing the internal delays. I suppose I'm feeling a bit hopeless.

Please, make me feel hope.

[Karen Hogan]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I'd point the member to paragraph 2.21. We actually targeted 33 files. We didn't do a random sample, so we couldn't tell you that it was the whole population to try to get exactly what you're saying—why and where it slowed down. We listed some areas, but you'll see that sometimes it was that something was sitting in the wrong queue.... There are a whole bunch of reasons.

I point the member to that paragraph.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We started the meeting a little late, so I would like to inform committee members that if they want to make that time up after this fourth round, there would have to be unanimous consent.

For now, Mr. Iacono has the floor for five minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Please note that I'll be sharing my time with my colleague, Sean Casey.

Ms. Hogan, throughout your audit, were there any overarching themes that you noticed with regard to Veterans Affairs, the processing of disability claims or the backlog?

[Karen Hogan]

Are you looking for themes as to why things were so slow? I guess I'm trying to make sure I understand the question.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Yes.

[Karen Hogan]

I would say what we saw as contributing to the long wait times was the following: There was the waiting for information, the back and forth, and some file mismanagement in some cases. As well, there was a large increase in applications. Also, funding was temporary, and half of the employees processing these applications were temporary. Those are the three things I would highlight as contributing to the long wait times.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

Since your report has come out and money hasn't been injected, what do you foresee as future trends at VAC? Will the number of incoming applications continue to rise or to drop? Is the department doing enough to increase its output? Do you have any recommendations and so on?

[Karen Hogan]

I don't believe I'm in a good position to be able to predict whether applications will grow. Over time, applications have grown. I think we can also predict that as our service men and women are deployed, we would expect that when they return there will likely be an increase in applications.

I really couldn't predict that, but I believe the department should be able to do that. It really is the department's job to know and to make sure it has the manpower in place to handle the applications.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Your comments are always well appreciated. Thank you.

I turn it over to my colleague, Sean.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Iacono.

I should start by responding to Mr. Caputo's indication that the budgets at Veterans Affairs increased in 2015. Indeed they did. Members of the government that took office in 2015 felt that cutting budgets and staff was a very cruel way to treat our veterans, and they fixed that.

I'd like to turn to page 12 of the report, specifically the paragraph in which you reference “public service capacity”. What I take from this is that in the middle of your audit term, in January 2021, spike teams were introduced to deal with the simplest of cases, the least complicated cases. This happened in the middle of your audit, yes?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Then, in paragraph 2.48, you did an analysis of three distinct six-month periods during the course of your audit, and—lo and behold—what you found was that the spike teams worked. What you found was that there was a significant increase in the processing of less complex cases.

Is that a fair conclusion for me to reach, that the spike teams that were introduced in January worked?

[Karen Hogan]

I don't know if I would attribute it to the spike teams, but there were many initiatives ongoing throughout the period of time, so there was clearly an improvement in the median time to process applications. However, to meet the 80% of files, that pushed out further months. That's why I say there are some initiatives that improved processing and there are clearly some initiatives that didn't improve processing, but the department is unable to identify which ones those were.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay. I take your point.

At page 1 you referenced the pain and suffering compensation benefit that came into effect on April 1, 2019, so one year before you started your audit there was a brand new benefit that came into place.

Did that have any impact on processing times, the fact that there was a previous benefit that had been there since 2006 under the new veterans charter, which was replaced a year before you commenced your audit?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes. I believe that what you're referring to is the fact that a benefit was replaced with another one. That would likely, I imagine, have had an impact on the determination at the end, but I'm not sure if it would have had an impact on the actual processing of an application. I don't know that information. We didn't triage our work based on that.