The Morrison-Joyce Government has failed to release a much-vaunted review of the veteran welfare system undertaken by external consultants McKinsey & Co, while waiting times for veteran claims have blown out even further in recent months.
When the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Andrew Gee announced the $1.3 million “overhaul” of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ (DVA) claims processing system on 16 October, he said McKinsey would deliver its action plan in December 2021.
It’s now late December and only days before Christmas, and still there has been no word from the Minister on the audit findings or recommendations.
In his original announcement of the review, the Minister further said he wanted to see immediate progress so that veterans and their families can receive the support they deserve and require, however the latest evidence on processing times shows the situation is getting worse.
A response to Labor’s questions in Senate Estimates has revealed that wait times and backlogs for a number of veteran payments have actually increased during the latest reporting period between 30 June and 30 September 2021.
The data show the average time to process veteran disability pension claims had jumped from 226 to 271 days, and the percentage of claims over 100 days old yet to be finalised had increased from 69.8 per cent to 73.3 per cent.
In addition, average processing times for Initial Liability claims under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-Related Claims) Act have blown out from to 245 to 305 days, while Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act Initial Liability claims have risen from 233 to 255 days, and the number of claims on hand under both Acts have increased as well.
This is consistent with evidence given in recent hearings at the Royal Commission into defence and veteran suicide, which heard veterans are suffering psychological harm as they wait up to 200 days to receive much-needed benefits.
The commission heard DVA has set itself a 100-day target to deliver benefits, however this has more than doubled in recent years to 200 days and, in some instances, 14 months. Anecdotally, many claims are taking up to 18 months.
Labor was always deeply sceptical of the McKinsey review as it failed to look at the key driver of long claim processing times and backlogs, which is the impact of chronic staff shortages in DVA.
As the recent Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee inquiry into the public service found, the long delays with veteran claims are a direct result of the Government’s ideological cap on permanent public servants, which has forced DVA to rely on high levels of poorly trained labour hire contractors.
We didn’t need another expensive consultant’s review to tell us that.
