Veterans Affairs did not meet service standards for most programs last year
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Veterans Affairs did not meet service standards for most programs last year
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Mar 27, 2019 5:10pm
VVi 29 Mar 2019 db
Veterans march into the Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, on Friday, November 11, 2016. iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood
Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) failed to meet its service standards in almost two-thirds of its measurable programs last year, according to documents tabled in the House of Commons last week.
The documents submitted in the Commons last Monday included 12 pages of tables detailing service standards and performance indicators used by VAC. They show that 63 per cent of the department’s service standards were not met in 2017-18.
The biggest disparities between targets and success-rate were in the percentage of decisions made about Community War Memorial funding (23 per cent were completed within 12 weeks compared to 80 per cent that the department set out for), the percentage of Long Term Care Program decisions made within 10 weeks (26 per cent were completed compared to the target of 80 per cent) and the percentage of decisions made within four weeks about eligibility for the Health Benefits Program (31 per cent compared to the target of 80 per cent).
VAC fell narrowly short of its benchmark for making eligibility decisions about the Rehabilitation Program (it aimed to make decisions within two weeks 80 per cent of the time, and completed them in that period only 74 per cent of the time) and in making decisions about the War Veterans Allowance Program in its target time of four weeks (it processed 72 per cent of decisions in that time compared to the target of 80 per cent).
VAC also didn’t meet its service standards in other personal service areas including in making decisions about disability benefits, career transition services and earnings loss benefits, in the amount of time it set out to.
Eight of 15 of the underperforming programs fell further behind their targets from the year before. Of the programs that were measured similarly five years ago, every program that didn’t meet its target last year had a worse performance than it had half a decade earlier.
The VAC documents were tabled in response to an order paper question by former NDP veterans affairs critic Gord Johns.
Due to extended briefings and travel on Wednesday, new Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay was not available to comment.
“Service standards are set as a public commitment to ensuring quality services for veterans and their families. Veterans Affairs Canada knows it must do better and are taking steps to improve results,” says the government’s response, that was signed off on by MacAulay.
“We are committed to meeting our service standards in all areas,” Alex Wellstead, a spokesperson for MacAulay, told iPolitics, when asked about which programs the department is most urgently trying to improve.
Wellstead also pointed out that in January, VAC processed a total of 5,100 disability benefit applications. According to Wellstead, there is a backlog of about 15,000 veterans waiting for disability benefits, beyond the length of the service standard. The January total of processed applications is about 1,300 more than any month since 2015, according to Wellstead.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said the backlog of veterans awaiting disability benefits was 40,000. That figure included anyone who may have been waiting for a length of time that was less than the service standard.