Article content continued

Officials blamed technical issues with a new phone and computer system, as well as problems transferring work to a private insurance company so staff could answer more calls. The department also chose some of the busiest times to have employees trained on and begin using the new system, which created hiccups.

“Yesterday, (Kirkland Lake) staff were off line for the first 15-30 minutes of their day as they signed into (the new system) for the first time,” officials said for the week of Nov. 10. “Once they were into the system, the queue of callers had built up and we chased it all day.”

Veterans Affairs Canada spokeswoman Janice Summerby said the dates were chosen “considering the impact on client service, the availability of both IT and non-IT staff, the size of the office, and the amount of data to be copied over.”

The department also had problems with internal communications and planning. For example, officials said the week of Nov. 17th that they “were not forewarned, nor did we anticipate the uptake on commemorative pins” that were announced by the government to mark the 75th anniversary of the Second World War.

The call centres also blamed high call volumes around Christmas and New Year’s for poor results at those times, even though they described the increase in calls as “typical for the beginning of January.”

Officials eventually decided to hire 12 additional, temporary staff “to compensate for ‘systems issues’ and mitigate our performance from September” to ensure they met their target of answering 80 per cent of calls within two minutes by the end of the year. They also hoped the eventual transfer of work to the insurance company would fix the problem.