2025-26 Departmental Plan at a glance

Key priorities

In 2025-26, the Board will continue work on its five-year Strategic Plan which outlines the organization’s four key priorities and framework for the 2023-24 to 2027-28 period. The initiatives and activities that flow from these priorities directly contribute to the Board’s planned results of ensuring Veterans receive high quality, Timely hearings and decisions.

The Board’s top priorities for 2025-26 are as follows:

Access to Justice

• Pursue opportunities to streamline processes and leverage technology to enhance the timeliness and efficiency of the appeal process to better serve Veterans.
• Explore opportunities to improve how we schedule and hear cases so that Veterans obtain access to the appeal process sooner.
• Continue to focus on outreach and engagement with the Veteran community and stakeholders to maintain strong partnerships with those who are a direct line to Veterans.
• Refine our social media and website approach and presence, to maximize effectiveness and reach, and explore other options for targeted communications with Veterans and stakeholders.

Productivity

• Undertake initiatives to sustain and improve productivity and to better monitor performance so Veterans receive their decisions sooner.
• Focus on the quality and consistency of our decisions through continued training and professional development for staff and Members.
• Identify talent needs and implement strategies that focus on attracting, developing and retaining a diverse workforce with the experience and skills required to provide Veterans with high quality, timely hearings.

Innovation

• Modernize our practices, processes and tools and integrate new business and technological solutions to enhance the appeal program.
• Invest in our staff and Members by offering new opportunities to build skills and knowledge through new work experiences; and continue to support digital government initiatives that cultivate internal expertise and knowledge.

People

• Foster an equitable, diverse, inclusive, accessible and bilingual work environment where people feel valued and respected.
• Continue to advance new and ongoing initiatives aimed at improving accessibility for Veterans and their families, as well as our staff and Members.

Highlights

In 2025-26, total planned spending (including internal services) for the VRAB is $23,073,258 and total planned full-time equivalent staff (including internal services) is 203. For complete information on the Board’s total planned spending and human resources, read the Planned spending and human resources section of the full plan.

The following provides a summary of the department’s planned achievements for 2025-26 according to its approved Departmental Results Framework. A Departmental Results Framework consists of a department’s core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve, and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.