Backlogged social security panel stops tracking results of appeals

All too symptomatic of the Government’s tendency to provide less and less information on its performance. See earlier Tribunal can deny in-person appeals in disability benefits cases.

If you can’t (or don’t) measure it, you can’t manage it, to use the cliché:

The tribunal did not immediately respond to queries about why it stopped tracking appeal results. Under the old regime, appeal decisions were published online and the so-called review tribunal made the statistics public in its annual report.

Allison Schmidt, a Regina-based disability claims advocate and consultant, said she “smells a rat” in the government’s recent failure to track how many appeals are allowed or dismissed by the tribunal.

She adds she suspects the Conservatives don’t want the public to know how many appeals are being denied.“Surely the tribunal must know the results of their work,” Schmidt said in an interview.

“It is ludicrous to assume that a quasi-judicial administrative government agency would not know the results of the appeals they conduct. All they have to do is count them; the decisions are all on file. What about transparency?”

Backlogged social security panel stops tracking results of appeals.