Some Questions For The Commissioner

Congressman Larson

     Congressman John Larson seems to have rediscovered the fact that he's the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee. He's actually sent a letter to the Commissioner of Social Security asking for a response to the recent report by the Social Security Advisory Board on field office closures. Maybe someone should tell him that he can schedule a hearing to really get some answers.

     What is the problem with Larson? Did he get stuck with a Subcommittee he isn't interested in chairing?

Increased Provision Of Online Services Has Not Reduced Demand For Telephone And Field Office Services

     The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has issued a brief report recommending that the Social Security Administration "use evidence-based measures to evaluate access to agency services" which isn't the most exciting recommendation you'll find even in the context of government advisory board reports. There's another more complete report which adds detail. However, the brief report includes this chart which I think is far more interesting than the text in either report. (Click on the image to view full size.)

     What I get from this is that the dramatic increase in internet services provided by the Social Security Administration has had almost no effect upon the demand for services provided in person or over the telephone.

     The idea that Social Security can wean the public off personal service so that in the future the public will just deal with the agency through its online services is bunk. There's no reason to expect that's ever going to work. By all means, provide online services but don't expect that online services will ever replace field offices and telephone service.

A Deep Irony

Sylvester Schieber, the Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), spoke to the conference of the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ) last month. Schieber did not speak off the cuff. He prepared a nine page speech and then thought enough of it to post it on the SSAB website. I find what he wrote appalling.

Trotting out the tritest rhetorical trick in the book, Schieber told the AALJ that "those who choose to ignore history are condemned to repeat it." Schieber thought that either Winston Churchill or Harry Truman said this. They may have said it, but if they did they were quoting George Santayana. But this is a minor quibble.

My bigger problem with this speech is encapsulated in the contradiction between this excerpt from the speech:

We all know that over the years there have been numerous attempts to reform, redesign, and improve the disability hearing process. In fact, when the Board was doing research for our September 2006 report, Improving the Hearings Process, we counted over 40 “hearings process improvements” initiatives undertaken by the agency in the preceding 30 years. Unfortunately, none of them had much lasting success. Today, the Social Security Administration has implemented another initiative designed to eliminate the disability hearings backlog and prevent its recurrence.

And this excerpt:

... it is necessary to look beyond conventional solutions to address the needs of the future. If SSA [Social Security Administration] truly is going to reduce the hearings backlog and prevent its recurrence, then the effort must extend beyond ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] and look at how work gets done across the agency. Policy and procedural conflicts and ambiguities need to be addressed; performance measures need to be standardized; and technology must be leveraged in a way that reflects a new approach to workflow rather than as a tool that merely automates current processes.

Schieber seems to recognize that grand plans for solving the problems of the Social Security Administration with reorganizations and technology have a dismal history. New managers at Social Security keep trying to reorganize or use technology to get their agency out of the hole it is in, but eventually find that all they have been doing is digging the hole deeper. But Schieber can only recommend that the agency dig smarter!

Here is Schieber's plan for smarter digging:

The Social Security Advisory Board believes that it is incumbent upon the Social Security Administration to once again envision a future where emerging technologies and other innovations can be used to deliver services that meet the needs of the American public. This will involve shedding traditional paradigms and undertaking a comprehensive review of current business processes, identifying gaps in service delivery and looking for efficiencies that will leverage human capital and resources. It is time for the agency to learn the right lessons from its history—that appropriate adaptation of technology can be the key to addressing its massive administrative challenges ...

This is a nothing but a mind-numbing barrage of corporate buzzwords. Do the other members of the SSAB know that he was speaking this nonsense on their behalf?

Schieber's speech is deeply ironic. Even though Schieber starts out by telling us that "those who choose to ignore history are condemned to repeat it," he proceeds to recommend that we repeat past mistakes. Schieber does not mention the obvious alternative of letting Social Security hire enough employees to get the work done, an approach that Commissioner Astrue once referred to as "brute force," which would be a genuinely new idea. Such a straightforward approach seems truly inconceivable to Schieber.

Schieber's speech is a good argument for dismantling the SSAB. The money would be better spent on more personnel to get the work done at Social Security. But I would say the same even if the chairman of the SSAB had something sensible to say.

By the way, if you are wondering how Schieber got his job, it was because he co-wrote a book calling for the partial privatization of Social Security.