New Veterans’ Affairs Minister Chris Penk says a waiting average of a year for veterans to have their claims processed is “unacceptable” and has led to a reduction in other services offered to those who served.
Veterans’ Affairs is restricting access to the Veterans Independence Programme - known as the VIP scheme - which the previous National-led Government lauded as a way of the country showing its appreciation to those who served.
Penk confirmed to the Herald he had rebuffed a plea from the Returned & Services Association to leave the VIP scheme untouched.
He said the VIP home-help scheme was “a great thing to be able to do” but it wasn’t a legal requirement. In future, it would be offered only to those confirmed to have suffered illness or injury from their service.
As a result, he said there would be a limiting of services under the VIP scheme as staff at Veterans’ Affairs New Zealand shift to focus on “core duties” which have lengthy waiting lists.
There were currently 6863 veterans signed up to receive home-help services ranging from lawn mowing and gardening to massage and podiatry.
Of those veterans, more than half (52 per cent) don’t qualify for Veterans’ Affairs’ other support packages because they do not have illness or injury directly connected to a particular deployment or mode of military service.
When launched with fanfare in 2015, the VIP scheme was estimated to cost about $5 million a year.
Then-Veterans’ Affairs Minister Craig Foss said: “Under the VIP, support is available to all veterans with qualifying service, whether or not they have a service-related injury. This means that more veterans will be able to access the services and support provided by Veterans’ Affairs than ever before.”
Veterans’ Affairs said the VIP scheme had cost $28.2m for the eight months to February 29 this year.
Penk said it was necessary to deal with the “frankly unacceptable timeframes” for veterans trying to access Veterans’ Affairs core services, such as disability claims or pensions.
“The number of these claims has been steadily increasing and the timeframes of those claims will blow out if we don’t do something.”
Veterans’ Affairs figures showed the average number of days for a disablement pension to be processed had risen from 324 days to 361 days.
The number of days for those applying for a permanent impairment lump sum had also risen, going from 154 days to 197 days, while processing time for those seeking weekly compensation was up from 80 days to 111 days.
Some claims’ processing waiting periods had dropped, such as claims for funeral expenses going from an average 68 days to an average 50 days, or those claiming an independence allowance, which had seen claims processed in an average 292 days rather than the 328 days it had been taking.
The problem was compounded, Penk said, by a lack of knowledge over how many veterans there were. He said it meant it was difficult to say whether Veterans’ Affairs was resourced at the right level.
Other indicators of the issues it posed could be seen in the $1 billion variation written into the New Zealand Defence Force’s (NZDF) accounts simply on the basis of being able to estimate the number of veterans who would seek help in the future.
Penk said it was historically difficult making policy and funding veteran support services “because we don’t know how many veterans there actually are”.
The changes announced by Veterans’ Affairs around the VIP scheme shut the door on what had been a flexibility spelled out in legislation as a “discretionary” offering to veterans.
Former Veterans’ Affairs staff have told the Herald they would offer VIP scheme assistance to veterans seeking assistance so they could receive something during the increasingly long periods their claims were being considered.
The Herald has been told doing so was seen as a way of recognising the veterans when their actual health claims could take more than a year to be processed.
And veterans had similarly told the Herald frustration over long-delayed claims would be somewhat ameliorated by inclusion on the VIP scheme, as it reduced some of the issues emerging with a yet-to-be-accepted health issue.
In future, those people will miss out on the VIP scheme, which will not be offered to anyone without an illness or injury linked to their service. Those seeking extra support will be told to approach ACC or the Ministry of Social Development.
Veterans’ Affairs leader Bernadine MacKenzie said the number of claims for treatment or rehabilitation from veterans with illness or injury linked to their qualifying service had increased in recent years, as had the complexity of those claims.
She said the increased workload had led to veterans waiting more than a year for applications to be processed.
MacKenzie said Veterans’ Affairs had chosen to “suspend” the VIP services for those without service-related health conditions to “help reduce the time that veterans have to wait for their claims to be decided”.
Those currently on the VIP scheme would stay on it, she said, and those without qualifying medical conditions would have a needs assessment - as currently happened. If the need was confirmed then the VIP scheme services would continue, she said.
Those who applied before March 13, when the decision was made to block access to the VIP scheme, would also benefit from the “benevolent approach”.
“No services currently being received will be withdrawn,” she said in a statement. “While the programme is suspended, Veterans’ Affairs will no longer offer new services to veterans who don’t have a service-related condition.”
For veterans seeking support, it’s not as straightforward as contacting Veterans’ Affairs to ask for help. First, they need to show their service “qualified” them to receive support - and then must show the medical condition which they needed help with was one that was linked to their military service.
RSA president Martyn Dunne - who spent 27 years with the New Zealand Army and retired as a Major General - said he hoped the RSA could partner with Veterans’ Affairs to reduce waiting times and to offer direct veteran-to-veteran support to those who had served.
It was a proposal Penk told the Herald had merit and was worth exploring.
Dunne said there was an issue with Veterans’ Affairs connecting with the community it was meant to serve. He said it didn’t employ enough servicepeople - a gap the RSA could help to bridge: “It comes down to a veteran talking to a veteran.”
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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