I really, really wanted to praise the slick design of the redone Web site operated by the Veterans Affairs Department, which it launched on Monday. But, alas, I instead need to put on, once again, my grump hat.
VA STILL (yes, I'm shouting) has not fixed the real problems with a truly mystifying corner of its Web operation I visit frequently: the Veterans Benefits Administration's Monday Morning Workload Report. This used to starkly delineate in spreadsheets how far behind VA lags in one of its core missions, processing disability and pension claims.
As I reported last month, starting the first week of October, VA redid its Monday Morning Workload page to provide a "more meaningful and transparent look" at all the data -- except it forgot to include any information AT ALL on pending GI bill claims, including claims from vets going to school under the post-9/11 GI bill, a truly botched program.
VA did not manage to get education claims data back into new, improved Monday Morning Workload reports until Oct. 26, but it sure looks far less meaningful than the old way VA presented the data.
Until Sept. 28, the report offered mucho details on education claims pending -- the number of claims in the current week vs. the previous week, and the percentage change from week to week, as well as the number of claims in the same week last year.
The new more "meaningful" Monday Morning Workload Report pares that rich data set back to its bones. Just the number of post-9/11 claims pending as of Nov. 23: 65,829. And all other educations claims pending: 217,936.
Want to know the week-to-week percentage change? You need to pop up the spreadsheet from the previous week (Nov. 16, kin this case), copy down the figures (which are 64,452 post-9/11 claims pending and 211,327 other GI bill claims pending), and then figure out the percentage change.
I'm really bad at math, so I only did the percentage change for the post-9/11 bill claims, which shows over the past week the number of pending claims has increased by 1,377, or just a shade more than 2 percent.
I'm still waiting for someone from VA to explain how the changes in the Monday Morning Workload Report are more meaningful than the old way. And I'd also like to get a handle on how it is doing on whittling away the post-9/11 claims, since the backlog is going up, not down.
COMMENTS
I think with a little digging you will find that the data is being hidden at the direction of the top.
The current SECVA has a history of hiding details. Case in point: Following Somalia (a/k/a "Black Hawk Down") the number one priority for the Army's CoS Gen Vuono was procurement of body armor for every soldier. Then the new CSA, Gen Shinseki got his nose bent out of joint and wanted all soldiers to wear a black beret. Shinseki stood the the procurement process on its head, dropped the priority of the body armor in favor of a black baret and bent a lot of facts along the way to justify his need for a piece of felt. The truth gradualy came out, he was running out of time and so he went to Communist China for the $ 22M procurement in violation of US laws. The Army got their new hat, Communist China got the money ,and the forgotten soldiers subsequently went to war w/o body armor, all bacause Shinseki hid the facts. He did it on many more issues throughout his tenure as CSA.
Sadly, you probably will have to wait for a new SECVA before you get your statistics back - the current place holder is back to his old ways. He hides the facts when they make him look bad.
v/r
phil
Phil Lindley 11/24/09 08:02 am ET