Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, vice-chairs, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the Office of Inspector General. It really is a tremendous honour to have this opportunity to speak with you today. First, let me provide a very brief introduction to the history of inspectors general.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. We've seen examples where some of the same issues seem to come up over and over, so what are we doing about that? Most of our reports include recommendations. The way our process works is that when we have a draft report with recommendations, we provide it to the department for two reasons.

Veterans Affairs committee  There's no involvement in the initial drafting of the report. We will have a full report, with recommendations, and that is our work, our thinking. Before we publicly issue it, we give the department a copy of the draft of that report and say to them to let us know if they have any comments on it.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. There are really two ways in which you have accountability. The first is within the department. The secretary of VA wants to close out all the open recommendations. Remember, these are recommendations that the department is committed to implementing. It reflects on the secretary if they're not implemented.

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of some of the top things, there's a whole score of issues that we hear about from veterans. Access to quality health care is a very significant issue. There are about seven million or so veterans who get treatment or a service of some kind at a VA medical facility. They want to make sure that they get in on a timely basis and that they're given the highest quality of care.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. VA, as I said, has 56 regional offices that are responsible for administering the benefits that veterans have earned. There were complaints that some of the offices weren't moving as quickly...some were busier than others. What VA has done is to move to a national workload queue, meaning that they're not relying just on the geography of where the veteran is, but rather considering the type of claim it is and which of the veterans regional offices has the capacity to take on that work.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I believe there are programs in which that is done. That's VA's responsibility. We have not looked at that area for some time. Just today, the secretary announced that, with the blessing of Congress, they're going to move to an electronic health care system which is compatible with the Department of Defense, so that a service member's medical records can be transferred to VA when that service member becomes a veteran.

Veterans Affairs committee  We do that balancing all the time. Unfortunately, we have found a number of instances where veterans, family members, and others have engaged in criminal activity to take advantage of benefits they're not entitled to. We do spend time investigating that. A number of the cases we have in this area are referred to us by other veterans who do not like to see the system cheated.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

Veterans Affairs committee  We do get reports of those issues. We are considering doing a national audit on sexual trauma. We've also done a number of reports relating to women veterans and the kind of treatment they get at the health care facilities at VA. We have done a national audit on that as well. We are very conscious of issues for all veterans, male and female.

Veterans Affairs committee  Those kinds of issues relating to the types of benefits that are available to veterans would be determined at first blush by the U.S. Congress, which would determine what the rules are. Then there are times when they delegate to the department the ability to administer other rules as well.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  That is something the veterans benefits administration would keep track of. They would have all the records of the benefits provided to veterans, as well as whatever tests are done to determine whether or not a veteran is eligible for any kind of benefits. They would have all those records.

Veterans Affairs committee  They do have rigorous testing, and for a number of issues it might involve a medical examination as well, depending on the type of benefit being sought.

Veterans Affairs committee  We have not looked at that for some time. It's an area that we are always conscious of. If we receive a number of complaints, if we think it's an area that deserves further attention—obviously, with the secretary's announcement of the IT system that is interoperable with DOD—we would look at those kinds of issues, but sitting here today, I can't recall one we have done recently in that area.