The Veterans Benefits Administration has a standardized training curriculum for new staff and a training requirement for all staff, but does not hold staff accountable for meeting this requirement, GAO has said in calling for increased focus on evaluation and accountability to improve training and performance management for claims processors.
Faced with an increase in disability claims, the VBA is hiring a large number of new claims processing staff and the curriculum for bringing them along includes "centralized training" and training at their home offices.
Currently, claims processors must complete 80 hours of training each year, though individual staff members face no consequences for failing to meet the training requirement and VBA has not tracked training completion by individuals, according to GAO-08-561.
It said the VBA is implementing a new system that should provide this capacity, and it has a training board that assesses its overall training needs.
However, it also said the agency does not consistently collect feedback on regional office training, and both new and experienced staff have raised issues with their training.
For example, some new staff raised concerns about the consistency of training provided by different instructors and about the usefulness of an on-line learning tool, while some experienced staff said 80 hours of training each year are unnecessary, and that training is often irrelevant and interferes with work.