It didn't bother me in the least in its own right. I was just curious if given what you had just said, you were intentionally coming across a way that it seems you weren't, that's all. No harm, no foul.
I am the farthest thing from a bureaucrat, 'dyed in the wool' or otherwise. I am also not 'making excuses for' VAC. I simply have some knowledge of bureaucracy. Not a whole ton, but enough to enter into discussions like this without a particular set of blinders that others seem to wear; namely, that there is an extensive and often painful - but obligatory - process and set of conditions that government initiatives have to adhere to. I don't raise issues like constraints on how the government spends money because I'm cheering those things on, but merely because they're an objective reality that other things must contend with.
You're being unclear about what your proposed address to the backlog is. What you said was:
So you're saying rip through the hole backlog, ask "Is the claim conceivable?" and grant it at maximum if so. I interpret from this that by 'at maximum' you mean 'what is the condition being claimed?' and to pay it out at the maximum seen in the table of disabilities for that particular claim. Use this tecnique to wipe out the backlog, say that 'just because these were granted so easily does not entitle anyone in future to same', and then carry on. So no, I've been pretty clear about what you said. You cannot propose what you just proposed, but then also claim that you didn't say 'not to assess' the file. You said "quick review for conceivability", which is a completely different standard of proof. And which again simply won't meet the standards for the how the government spends money.
My thought process for my post was based on the following: I stated conceivability - capable of being understood, believed, or imagined; or possible. The context is from VRAB directions provided in the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act. Whether or not any piece of evidence is assessed as credible evidence can depend on a number of factors: 1) The facts or history are accurate and complete, that is, they are the same facts that are apparent from the other evidence; 2) The conclusion makes sense in that it flows logically from the facts; and 3) If it is medical evidence, the medical expert provides a reasonable explanation of how he or she has drawn the conclusion from the facts.
Additionally the Pension Act:"The requirement to “resolve doubt in favour of an applicant” is to be applied throughout the decision-making process in the assessment or “weighing” of the evidence. This requirement is particularly important in those situations where the facts of a case are closely balanced and the adjudicator is having difficulty in deciding whether entitlement should be granted. It should never be used as a substitute for lack of evidence.
Each and every claim has to be properly assessed by someone qualified to do that. That's one of those constraints that any realistic proposal must recognize. The math's not really hard here' we're talking about input of claims, time to process claims, and output of determinations. If claims come in faster than they can be processed, wait times go up. If claims come in slower than they can be processed, wait times go down. VAC has little abiltiy to control how fast claims come in, so they variable they can work on is how quickly they are processed. That in turn depends on what is involved in processing a claim (to include assessment, by far the bulk of the work), and the actual capacity they have to simultaneously work multiple claims.
In the system there are various chokepoints, some separate from each other, some which compound each other. We know a lot of them:
- Quality of incoming claims is one. Are they complete and comprehensive? Has the veteran or their rep provided all info necessary to make the assessment?
- How many people are there to actually assess and rule on the claim? How experienced and efficient are they? We know VAC needs more of these because they have a ton of job postings up for Veterans Service Agents, Inquiries Resolution Officer, Benefits Program Officer, and Veterans Service Team Manager. They appear to be struggling to fill those roles.
- Does the public service hiring process hinder bringing in enough people to get this done? Could some part of this backlog be contracted out to a service provider that can hire on a contract basis the necessary people to help work the backlog?
- Is the process for medically evaluating a claim sound? Are there enough health professionals to move claims through as fast as they come in in terms of determining the actual medical legitimacy of a claim? Does this unnecessarily overlap and duplicate medical evaluations already conducted by the CAF or RCMP health services to determine medical limitations? Can efficiency be sought by front loading any particular additional info VAC might need and making it part of a health assessment that either of those two organizations use to determine medical categories and limitations?
OK, OK I understand and realize there is bureaucracy, because that's what you are describing. Find a way to triage that system.
I'm sure there are others. In any case you have more than enough experience with mission analysis and bureaucracy to see where I'm going with this, and I'm frankly disappointed to see you taking shots at me when you're treating this as cavalierly as you seem to be, as if 'throwing money at' the problem means we walk into a big chamber full of anthropomorphized VAC claims and hand each of them a wad of bills to go away and just be dealt with. No. I'm all for throwing money at this problem. So where's the money go? To me it seems that the money has to feed and bolster the parts of the process where this bogs down. Add more capacity to the assembly line. Hire more workers. Reduce duplications of effort. Eliminate unnecesary steps, and optimize those that are inefficient. Maybe they could separately run a tiger team to aggressively work the 'easy' claims like hearing loss- though they have to be careful not to accidentlally create a system where those with the most complex cases who are most in need of benefits and services aren't stuck waiting longer because their files are less convenient to deal with quickly. Maybe concurrently to all this, bring onboard a few troubleshooter consultants to critically examine processes from the standpoint of the desired product, and to help the department work towards more efficiently delivering every benefit or service to which entitlement can be reasonably and fairly demonstrated by eligible veterans and service members.
Because *those* things can be done. Removing the safeguards around how public servants disburse money on programs, benefits or services realistically can't.
