Question Period Note: 2021–22 DEPARTMENTAL RESULTS REPORT

• The Departmental Results Report (DRR) outlines what we accomplished and the results achieved for Veteran health and well-being in 2021-22 (tabled in Parliament on December 2, 2022).
• Our focus continues to be on improving the overall health, well being and financial security of Veterans and their families, while recognizing and commemorating those who have served.
• More than 90% of the $5.4B spent in 2021–22 consisted of payments to Veterans and their families.
• Despite the ongoing pandemic, we continued to provide crucial services to Veterans, improved the way we deliver benefits and programs, and streamlined our processes.

BACKGROUND - 2021–22 DRR

The 2021–22 DRR provides parliamentarians and Canadians with information on what we accomplished and how we achieved the results we wanted to reach during the fiscal year against the plans set out in our Departmental Plan for that year.
Highlights from the Report include:
• Launching our new Mental Health Benefits which provide immediate mental health coverage to Veterans applying for a disability benefit for certain mental health conditions;
• Connecting more than a thousand Veterans with potential employers through national and regional webinars;
• Providing more options for virtual services at operational stress injury clinics, with over 70% of appointments done remotely;
• Improving features on My VAC Account, such as providing access for powers of attorney;
• Using Gender-based Analysis Plus, which helps us to be more inclusive in the support of all Veterans, especially the most marginalized;
• Expanding the Education and Training Benefit to include technical education, providing access to funding for career-focused, intensive programs related to specific employment fields;
• Delegating more decision-making to front line staff so that Veterans can receive some benefits quicker; and
• Developing and implementing of a number of digital solutions, including dashboards, to leverage data and increase efficiency in several areas including, Disability Processing, Case Management, and Access to Information.
Quick stats from the DRR include:
• 10,875 clients accessed services from our OSI Clinics. Of those, 3,676 were new clients.
• 27,722 clients were provided with a total of $963M via the Income Replacement Benefits (IRB) to support their financial well-being, rehabilitation and re-establishment to post military life. That is up from $868M in 2020–21 (an 11% increase).
• Hosted new and innovative online events to connect Veterans with employers:
o An estimated 1,000 Veterans/transitioning members participated in a series of national and regional seminars and over 2,000 registrants had access to the recorded sessions.
o More than 1,300 registered for a five-day private sector webinar with presentations from over 40 employers with approximately 100 viewers at each presentation.
• Financial support was provided 736 times to 574 Veterans and their families via the Veterans Emergency Fund. In 65 instances, the Veterans were homeless.
• We proactively reached out to 2,800 high-risk Veterans in an effort to ensure basic needs were met and they could access the support they need.
• Approximately 50% of the disability application backlog has been reduced since the spring of 2020.
• An average of 4,900 applications were completed per month with the help of both our permanent and temporary employees, in late 2021 and early 2022. That is a 40% increase over the average for the previous three fiscal years.
• Our national call centre responded to 356,998 calls.
• We responded to 314,758 secure messages via My VAC Account.
• We employed 3,663 full-time equivalents, including many new hires, most of whom provided direct service to Veterans and their families.

2021–22 DRR results compared to 2020–21 DRR results

Due to the cyclical nature of some of our data sources (surveys especially, on 2 or 3 year cycles), there were several indicators that did not have updated results to report. In other cases, some indicators had targets and dates to achieve those targets that were set in the future. But of those that were available and due to be achieved by March 31, 2022, the Department met 69% of them.

In addition, to provide information and to correct a recent reference that the Department only met 18% of our targets in the previous fiscal year of 2020–21, a breakdown of the results can be found below:

2020–21 breakdown 2021–22 breakdown
MET 8 MET 6
NOT MET 13 NOT MET 4
NOT AVAILABLE 4 NOT AVAILABLE 1
TARGET SET IN FUTURE 19
(not to be counted in denominator) TARGET SET IN FUTURE 34
(not to be counted in denominator)

It appears that the reference made refers to the summary above (as displayed on GCInfobase) and assuming that the calculation would be 8 indicators met, divided by 44 indicators total = 18% met. It is not that simple.

It is not an accurate depiction of the results to calculate it as such as many of the results reported had a target date to be achieved in the future and those should not be used in the denominator. Therefore the calculations should be made as follows:

2020–21: 8 met / 25 = 32% (25 being 8+13+4)

2021–22: 6 met /11 = 55% (11 being 6+4+1)

It is worth noting that due to limitations with the manner in which GCInfobase displays certain results, there are some instances where the Not Available category should not be counted in the denominator. Some are N/A due to reasons beyond our control or were not an exact fit for the other categories. However, as each N/A may be counted differently, we left them in the denominator for simplicity. If we were to break down the N/A’s in how we feel they should be counted, our result would rise even higher.

In addition, if we were to look at the 34 items with targets set in the future for 2021–22, the breakdown shows us trending in a positive manner. Of the 34:

• 10 were met
• 2 were not met
• 22 did not have new results due to the cyclical nature of the source (i.e. surveys)

WHEN PRESSED
Q1) Why did the Department lapse funding in 2021-22?
A1) Lapsing funds is a normal and expected part of any budgetary process.
• Our annual budget fluctuates each year due to the demand-driven nature of our programs—based on Veterans’ needs and entitlements.
• Overall, the Department has increased the amount of services and benefits it has provided to Veterans, resulting in increased spending in recent years, from $3.8 billion in 2016-17 to $5.4 billion in 2021-22.
• Our actual spending for 2021-22 was $884 million lower than planned due mainly to: higher-than-anticipated attrition (term employee departures) and delays is staffing resulting in lower productivity; and lower-than-forecasted demand for certain programs due to disruption in services from pandemic restrictions.
Q2) What is VAC doing to address wait times?
A2) We know the current processing times for disability benefits are unacceptable and reducing them remains our top priority. We have made progress, but we know there is more work to do.
• As of 30 September 2022, we’ve reduced the average wait time from 44 weeks in 2021 to 25 weeks—a reduction of 19 weeks.
• As of 30 September 2022, we've reduced the number of applications waiting longer than our service standard (the backlog) to 9,687. This is a reduction of over 50% since the spring of 2020 when there were more than 23,000 applications in the backlog.
• We continue to improve the discrepancy in processing times between English and French first applications. The difference in median turnaround time has gone from 13.8 weeks in quarter one 2022-2023 to 5.3 weeks in quarter two 2022-2023. We have also significantly reduced the gap in tunaround times for applications from Women Veterans.
• We have made changes in our systems and how we work. We also hired additional temporary employees dedicated to this issue – recently extended to March 2024 – thanks to an investment of $139.6 million announced in February.