ACVA Appearance on May 31, 2016
On May 31, 2016, the Board’s Acting Chair Thomas Jarmyn appeared before the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) to talk about the Board’s work. Click here to read his statement and full testimony, or here to listen to the meeting. Following his appearance, Mr. Jarmyn provided the committee with the following additional information:
As I mentioned at the meeting, the Board has undergone transformative change in recent years by acting on recommendations from ACVA and the Veterans Ombudsman as well as on feedback from Veterans and stakeholders. We have reduced processing timeframes, improved our decisions, and increased transparency through the publication of decisions and better communications.
I will continue to focus on these priorities in my role as Acting Chair, to ensure that Veterans are being well-served by the appeal process and receive all the benefits they are entitled to for service-related disabilities.
With this letter, I would like to provide additional information in response to questions posed at the meeting and to further support Committee members in understanding the Board’s work.
Timely Service
Service Standards
Committee members were very interested in the time it takes the Board to hear and decide Veterans’ applications for Review and Appeal. As I explained, we have established clear service standards for the time within our control, and meet these standards for the vast majority of cases.
Regarding our 16-week service commitment—suggested by ACVA in its 2012 report and consequently adopted by the Board—we hear and decide 96% of cases within 16 weeks of the hearing being scheduled. I would like to further break down this performance so that the Committee can appreciate our commitment to timely service for Veterans.
In reality, 86% of Veterans had their Review cases heard and decided within 10 weeks—well before the Board’s 16-week service standard. Our performance at Appeal is even stronger. This graph provides the detailed breakdown of the data:
Operational Efficiencies
It bears noting here that the Board has worked with an external consultant in recent years to find efficiencies in our operations through a business process redesign project. This initiative began with a mapping and analysis of our workflow, and resulted in streamlined procedures and better hearing documentation. We continue to pursue ideas generated by the redesign project, including paperless hearings, to improve service delivery for Veterans.
Our program has also been evaluated recently by:
- the Office of the Auditor General (mental health services study);
- the Office of the Comptroller General (privacy); and
- the Public Service Commission of Canada (staffing).
And, of course, we continue to benefit from the engagement of this Committee and the Veterans Ombudsman in our work.
Videoconference Hearings
The Board has also embraced technology to offer Veterans more options for timely hearings. For example, when the Critical Injury Benefit came into effect in 2015, the Board committed to offering Review hearings by videoconference within three weeks of being advised by the Veteran and their representative that they are ready to proceed. To date, despite the fact that the Board has heard 8 CIB Reviews and has 19 CIB Reviews pending, no one has requested this option.
We continue to encourage the Bureau of Pensions Advocates to talk to Veterans about videoconferencing, which has great potential to make the hearing process faster for some cases. While most of the Veterans who had their Review hearing by videoconference last year told us it worked well for them, these hearings represented a very small percentage of our work (only 1% of Review hearings – 28 of 2534).
Decision making
Committee members had several questions about decision making at the Board. As I stated at the meeting, Board members are not making diagnoses nor are they answering medical questions – instead, they are evaluating many kinds of evidence to determine whether it meets the requirements of the legislation. In doing this, they consider adjudicative tools created by Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) for the disability benefits program.
The most instructive of these tools are:
- The Entitlement Eligibility Guidelines and Medical Guidelines, which are policy statements based on evidence from credible and peer-reviewed medical research and literature. These were developed by VAC to guide their adjudicators in making decisions about entitlement to disability benefits, and to help Veterans prepare their applications. Board members consider these guidelines in making decisions, but are not bound by them and will go beyond them if the evidence (particularly medical evidence) supports it.
- The Table of Disabilities, which is a binding, legislative instrument and is used to assess the extent or severity of service-related disabilities.
Representation for Veterans
As I mentioned during my testimony, Veterans have access to free legal assistance and representation at Board hearings from the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. The Bureau is not part of the Board – it is a separate and distinct organization whose composition and role is described at ss. 6.1(1) of the Department of Veterans Affairs Act.
Corporate Affairs
Performance Bonuses
With respect to Committee members’ questions about performance bonuses, I want to be very clear that Board members are not eligible to receive these. As stated in the Terms and Conditions of Employment for Full-Time Governor in Council Appointees, Governor in Council appointees in administrative tribunals (like the Board) are not eligible because they require independence from government in their decision making.
For public servants, Treasury Board has established policies and directives to guide the administration of performance pay across the government. These require that individual accountabilities be linked to an organization’s strategic and business priorities, and support the government’s key leadership competencies. Eligible staff at the Board are assessed based on this criteria and results are included in Treasury Board’s annual reports.
Separate Department under the FAA
As raised by Mr. Clarke, the Board was identified and began reporting as a separate department in 2011-12. This followed an amendment to include the Board in Schedule I.1 of the Financial Administration Act, correcting an omission dating back to our establishment in 1995. While the Board has always functioned with an independent mandate at arm’s-length from the Department of Veterans Affairs, our inclusion in the appropriate schedule confirmed our full departmental status for the Estimates process and reporting.
Statistics
I would also like to clarify several statistical references, to ensure that Committee members have the proper context.
Federal Court
The 2012 report from the Veterans Ombudsman focused on 140 Board decisions that had gone forward to Federal Court for a judicial review over a 17-year time span (from 1995 to 2012). These 140 decisions represent 0.1% of the more than 118,600 decisions made by the Board during that period of time. Of those 140 decisions, 85 of them (or 60% of 140) were returned by the Court to the Board for a new hearing. This statistic is often wrongly applied to the full body of the Board’s decisions and misrepresents our work.
As I mentioned at the meeting, the Board’s outcomes at Federal Court have improved significantly over time – last year, the Court issued 10 judicial review decisions, eight of which upheld the Board’s decisions. This is indicative of the many improvements we have made since the Ombudsman’s report, including our focus on clear reasons for decisions.
Response to Order Paper Question
Ms. Mathyssen asked a question which presumed declining favourability in Board decisions based on our response to her order paper question. I would like to point out that the Board’s response provided only partial data for 2015-16 (because that was all that was available when we received her question in January 2016). With the benefit of the full data for the fiscal year, I would like to clarify for the Committee that the Board’s overall favourability actually increased: 49% of Veterans who came to the Board in 2015-16 received favourable decisions versus 47% in 2014-15.
Thank you for this opportunity to inform the Committee about the Board, which operates at arm’s-length from Veterans Affairs Canada to provide a fair appeal process for Veterans and their families. Please feel free to contact me in the future for any general information that may assist you in your work. I would also like to reiterate my invitation to Committee members to individually observe Review hearings and have asked someone from our office to contact you to arrange this opportunity.