On August 9 Social Security adopted regulations allowing its senior attorneys to issue fully favorable decisions. I have not yet seen any staff instructions on the senior attorney program nor any sign that the program is being implemented anywhere. Creating the instructions should be a snap. Merely dust off the old instructions, make a few changes and you have what you need. There ought to be some training, but the process is not that difficult. Why should it take so long to get going?
I can think of one possible explanation why things seem not to be moving. If attorney time is diverted to doing the senior attorney decisions, there will be less attorney time that can be devoted to writing decisions for Administrative Law Judges, creating a backlog there. In other words, the senior attorney program may not amount to much until more attorneys are hired and trained, because otherwise the agency is just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and will get little if any boost in productivity.
I can think of one possible explanation why things seem not to be moving. If attorney time is diverted to doing the senior attorney decisions, there will be less attorney time that can be devoted to writing decisions for Administrative Law Judges, creating a backlog there. In other words, the senior attorney program may not amount to much until more attorneys are hired and trained, because otherwise the agency is just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and will get little if any boost in productivity.
Which is precisely why most folks in the field resisted the re-introduction of this program. It's impact on the backlog is marginal, at best.
ReplyDeleteActually, NTEU had a great program proposal but it has been ignored. Only current sr attys will be part of the program and then it is left up to the individual offices exactly what each one will do. With very few sr attys there will be no difference in the backlog. The original program with some modifications would have created a big dent in it.
ReplyDeleteContacts at ODAR provided information that Senior Attorneys are grade GS 14. Using the OPM web site from the Sep 12th posting shows a significant increase of GS 14 employees while total employment at SSA was decreasing. The number in ’98 was 1489 while by June ’07 it had risen to 2513. If these positions are Senior Attorney; why the delay? If they aren’t,who might they be?
ReplyDeleteSr attorneys have a grade of 13, not 14.
ReplyDelete