Audit of Veterans Benefits Administration Compensation and Pension Site Visit Program

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) Compensation and Pension (C&P) Site Visit program effectively monitors and evaluates Veteran Service Center (VSC) operations. We assessed the effectiveness of Site Visit planning, their ability to identify and report operational issues and best practices, and the disposition of actions requiring attention. We conducted our work from July to November 2008. While the C&P Site Visit program provides centralized oversight and technical assistance to VSC operations, the program lacks the adequate infrastructure and management strategy to meet its mission and goals. Improvements are needed in staffing and staff independence to ensure all VAROs are visited within the agency’s stated goal of 3 years, which includes initial reporting and follow-up. Unless enhancements and comprehensive changes are made to the C&P Site Visit program’s design and execution, the C&P Service is likely to miss opportunities to improve performance across its regional office field structure. The Under Secretary for Benefits concurred with our findings and recommendations. The planned corrective actions for the recommendations are responsive to our concerns. We will close the recommendations when all proposed actions have been completed by VBA. The Director of VBA’s C&P Service also agreed that they will incorporate the requirements for independence and impairment statements into C&P Service’s standard operating procedures for future site visits. These statements will be completed by each participant of the site visit reviews.