DVA TALKING POINTS – ESO ROUND TABLE (12/11/2015)
Changes to Programme Performance Indicators (PPIs) for
Outcome 1
Implementation of the
Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act
2013 (PGPA), requires DVA to review its performance indicators, and this process
commenced late in 2014.
In September 2015, DVA’s Executive Management Board (EMB) endorsed new
indicators for Outcome 1, which is relevant to Income Support, VEA Disability
Claims, War Widow/ers claims, MRCA claims, and SRCA claims.
There are several
reasons for the forthcoming changes, including:
a.
Client service: DVA continues to strive to improve its service standards and
outcomes for clients;
b.
Legislative: the PGPA requires the Secretary, to measure and assess the
performance of the entity in achieving its purpose, and prepare an Annual
Performance Statement for inclusion in the entity’s annual report;
c.
Best practice: the ANAO’s better practice criteria for the development of
performance measures, requires them to be
Relevant,
Reliable, and
Complete;
d. Shortcomings of current performance measures:
i. Outcome 1’s performance indicators are inconsistent, irrelevant in
some cases, inaccurate or incomplete;
ii. In addition, the current use of the mean (or average) number of days
to process a claim is easily misunderstood and unduly influenced by
very new or very old cases;
iii. A move to a more contemporary measurement, such as percentile
bands has been successfully adopted by other similar agencies,
including Department of Human Services.
In summary, the
forthcoming changes will move from the current timeliness
description of “mean or average number of days” to the new percentile band
approach.
Table 1 at Attachment A shows the results for various sub-programmes in
Outcome 1 over the last three financial years, in terms of 50th percentiles.
The “median” (or 50th percentile) will be introduced as the initial target.
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The 50th percentile is the median, however, it is best described as
‘50 per cent of
cases can be expected to be processed in X days or less’.
Table 2 at Attachment B shows the current and new median (50th percentile)
timeliness performance targets for sub-programmes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.6 in
Outcome 1.
DVA plans to report against both the current and new indicators in the Corporate
Plan 2016-17 and the Annual Report 2016-17.
Some of the key improvements include:
a. Addressing the inaccuracy of Outcome 1.2;
b. Removing the affect of ‘merged cases’ on time taken to process (TTTP)
results*;
c. Establishing single and consistent timeliness targets for all liability claims,
regardless of the Act the claim is lodged under; and
d. Setting quality assurance targets at a ‘correctness rate’ rather than an error
rate.
* ‘Merged cases’ are where an ‘applications for increase’ (AFIs) is merged with a
Disability Pension (DP) claim that is received by the Department at the same time.
It is important to note ‘merged cases’ make up approximately 30 per cent of
finalised cases. The AFIs that are merged usually have a TTTP of 1 or only a few
days, even though they are finalised at the same time as the DP claim with which
they have been merged. The affect of merging cases halves the average TTTP for
approximately 30 per cent of VEA claims.
DVA continues to strive to improve its service standards and outcomes for clients.
This is a response to a whole of Government approach to public governance,
performance, and accountability, requiring DVA to review its PPIs to ensure they
are relevant, reliable, and complete.
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The
benefits of these forthcoming changes include:
a. More realistic targets being set for delegates;
b. Clients and their representatives having clearer expectations of the claims
process;
c. DVA’s performance being measured more accurately; and
d. Stakeholders being able to understand DVA performance reporting more
easily.
It is recommended that ESORT Members:
a.
Note the forthcoming changes to DVA’s timeliness measures in respect to
Programmes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.6;
b.
Agree to inform the ESO community about the forthcoming changes; and
c.
Note that both the current and new indicators will be reported against in the
DVA Corporate Plan 2016-17 and the Annual Report 2016-17.
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