Social Security Administration: Service Delivery Plan Needed to Address Baby Boom Retirement Challenges
Highlights
Millions of people rely on the services of Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices. In fiscal year 2008, SSA's approximately 1,300 field offices provided service to about 44 million customers. People visit field offices to apply for Social Security cards, apply for retirement and disability benefits, establish direct deposit, and a host of other services. Over the last several years, staffing reductions have challenged field offices' ability to manage work while continuing to deliver quality customer service. To better understand the challenges SSA faces in delivering quality customer service, GAO was asked to determine (1) the effect that staffing reductions are having on field office operations and (2) the challenges SSA faces in meeting service delivery needs in the future and the agency's plan for addressing them. In May 2008, GAO reported initial observations on the effects of reduced staff levels. To conduct this work, GAO interviewed SSA headquarters and field officials and analyzed various data on SSA's workloads and customer service.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security Administration | To pursue high-quality field office service, SSA should develop a service delivery plan that describes, in detail, how it will deliver quality customer service in the future while managing growing work demands with constrained resources. This plan should identify the extent that new business processes will allow SSA to accommodate growing demand or whether additional resources are needed to achieve its strategic goals. Further, this plan should establish standards for field office customer waiting times and phone service to help identify and improve offices with poor service. |
Closed – Not Implemented
In 2009, SSA disagreed that it did not have a detailed plan to address future service delivery needs, stating that it continually plans for the future and has been long aware that the Baby Boom generation would have a dramatic impact on internal staffing losses, as well as escalating disability and retirement claims workloads. The agency described its current efforts as being the Annual Strategic Plan and the agency's annual budget documents. However, in response to continuing concerns about a lack of a consolidated plan to address the disability and retirement wave of the Baby Boom generation, SSA commented that it is developing a single document that describes the many planning efforts that it has in place. SSA commented that its consolidated document will, at a minimum, include comprehensive plans for expanding electronic services for customers; increasing the centralization of receiving phone calls and working claims from customers while maintaining the network of local field offices; enhancing phone and video services in field offices (where applicable) and piloting self-service personal computers in the reception areas of those offices; and continuing to assess the efficiency of field offices. SSA did not agree with our recommendation to establish quantitative standards for field office customer wait times and phone service, stating that such standards would create problems by diverting staff already spread thin across field offices away from processing claims and post-entitlement work. SSA stated that it tracks waiting times and makes adjustments as necessary to improve service, and that many of the recently hired field office staff went to offices with the highest waiting times. GAO recognizes the many pressures SSA faces, but continues to believe that clear standards that establish a minimum level of quality customer service are an essential first step for organizations to measure success. SSA provided no updates on this recommendation in FY10 and FY11. In FY12, SSA reported that it continues to disagree with this recommendation.
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