Helping veterans with access to home services
A complainant contacted us as they were experiencing ongoing issues with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA). The complainant was entitled to yard, lawn and home cleaning services under DVA’s Household Services (HHS) scheme. In 2022, they reported that their DVA cleaning and gardening provider was not paid for services delivered. The provider cancelled the cleaning and gardening services with the complainant.
The complainant said they were unable to contract a new cleaner because of the unpaid or inconsistent payment to the service provider. The complainant was required to use an alternative cleaning and gardening service and sought reimbursement from DVA for the invoices they personally paid.
The complainant reported they had lodged many complaints and requested that DVA pay the outstanding invoices and repair the relationship with the original service provider. They also requested that DVA contract a new cleaner for their home, as per their HHS entitlements.
We investigated the complaint. We found there had been delays in payments to the complainant’s providers on 14 occasions, but there were currently no outstanding invoices to be paid. DVA advised it would either pay for or reimburse the complainant for all costs under their approved HHS plan.
DVA acknowledged they did not process the invoices within their internal timeframes due to a backlog and the number of invoices received. DVA also acknowledged their complaints officer had provided incorrect information to the complainant.
DVA responded that it was engaging more staff and improving tools to monitor and report on processing performance. DVA reported they are now consistently processing more than 90% of all HHS invoices within 20 business days.
We advised the complainant of the improvement in invoice processing times and the option to either stay with their current services provider or change to the contracted services, which DVA would either pay for or reimburse all costs approved under the complainant’s HHS plan.
2024