One main finding in our audit was that because of the poor management of files and the lack of traceable targets for those initiatives we mentioned, neither our office nor the department was able to demonstrate that the initiatives were actually making things better. What we're seeing is that there wasn't really an improvement in the wait times.
I appreciate that eliminating files in a backlog is an improvement, because any file treated, or any veteran receiving a communication about their benefits, is an improvement. However, it's not dealing with the root cause. It takes far longer than the service standard, right now, to get notification about a file. I can't tell you whether, based on our audit.... It doesn't look as if they're headed in the right direction, but I haven't looked at anything past September 2021.