Recent achievements - June 2015

The Social Security Tribunal is beginning its third year of operation and I am pleased to report on the significant progress achieved by our Members and staff over the last two years, and share an important announcement with regards to our service standards:

The Appeal Division Members have completed both backlogs received from the former appellate tribunals and are now working on the inventory accumulated since the Tribunal’s opening. We are currently up to date in Income Security cases and expect to achieve a steady state in Employment Insurance cases by September 1, 2015.

In the General Division, Employment Insurance Section we are managing our caseload very well as we generally complete as many cases, or more, than we receive each month and our processing times are reasonable.  

The General Division, Income Security Section has been facing considerable pressure with the significant backlog of over 7000 cases inherited from the former tribunal. With a complement of 39 full-time Members and 22 new part-time Members, our capacity to complete more cases has now significantly increased and I expect to see important progress this year.

Parties want to know when they can expect a decision on their appeal and the Tribunal has now developed service standards for each Division/Section. As the Tribunal continues to progress, we will continue to review our processes and systems for opportunities to improve our performance.

We have achieved much since our beginnings two years ago but much remains to be done. Moving forward, our 2015-16 priorities will be focused on:

• Issuing decisions of quality in a timely manner
  • The Tribunal will publish all of its Appeal Division decisions this fiscal year, in addition to increasing the number of published General Division decisions. In support of this and other priorities, the Tribunal will continue to provide new, useful tools to members for decision-making and efficient case processing, as well as implement and monitor Tribunal service standards and performance.
• Processing all of the Tribunal's caseload through efficient, effective and timely caseload management
  • The Tribunal will continue to process all of its caseloads in an efficient, effective and timely manner with significant progress expected to continue in the coming months with the General Division, Income Security Section workload. Other priorities such as the implementation of operational performance standards, process efficiencies, and improved statistical analysis and reporting will contribute to the efficient processing of the Tribunal’s caseload.
• Improving communications and increase transparency with parties, stakeholders and the public
  • In addition to publishing all Appeal Division decisions in 2015-16; the Tribunal will  continue to improve the information available on its website and offer parties improved services to facilitate communication with Tribunal staff such as an enhanced toll-free information line.  The Tribunal will also continue its efforts to have ongoing exchanges with a variety of stakeholders as well as increase the number of its published General Division, Employment Insurance and Income Security decisions.
• Supporting the transition of internal services from Employment and Social Development Canada to the Administrative Tribunals Support Service Canada
  • When the Social Security Tribunal was created, all of its internal services were provided by Employment and Social Development Canada.  On November 1, 2014, the internal services of eleven tribunals – including the Social Security Tribunal – were consolidated into a single organization, the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC).  The transition of internal services from ESDC to ATSSC continues to be appropriately managed and implemented as to ensure no disruption to the Tribunal mandate and its services to the public.

As we continue to grow as an organization, the Members and the staff of the Tribunal are committed to continue to provide fair, impartial, transparent and timely appeal processes to all parties.