ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
Date: November 20, 1995
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: Manager, Occupational Health, Safety & Rehabilitation,
in consultation with the Deputy Director of Finance
SUBJECT: Appointment of Consultant - Review of Workers
Compensation Board Invoices
RECOMMENDATION
THAT Council approve the appointment of Pacific Risk Management
Limited (PRM) to review the City's Workers Compensation Board
(WCB) invoices, with payment for services on a shared-savings basis
as outlined in this report, with no net increase to the City's
operating budget and subject to a contract satisfactory to the
Director of Legal Services.
GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The General Manager of Human Resource Services RECOMMENDS approval
of the foregoing.
COUNCIL POLICY
Consulting services contracts are to be awarded on the basis of best
value for cost.
Consultant contracts over $30,000 require the approval of Council.
During the term of the 1994-1996 Budget Management Program, any
recommendations for increased staff or enhanced programs must be fully
offset by corresponding expenditure reductions or increases in non-tax
revenues within the City's Operating budget.
PURPOSE
The purpose of this report is to appoint a consultant to review the
City's WCB invoices in order to correct for systematic errors in
assessment rates as well as for incidental errors in claims costing.
DISCUSSION
The City of Vancouver's WCB assessments are produced by the same system
that serves all of WCB customers, which in turn is similar to, or
identical to, most other WCB systems in North America.
There is a strong probability that there are errors in the City's
WCB assessment and the City would likely benefit from a review. The
proposal from PRM to review the City of Vancouver's WCB assessment
invoices sets out the basic workplan as follows:
1. A complete analysis and inspection of the City's WCB
assessment and claims billing is carried out.
2. A complete reconciliation is carried out to ensure billing
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matches the results of the previous analysis. This also
includes an analysis of claims and rates charged.
3 The findings from step 1 & 2 are presented by the consultant
to the Workers Compensation Board on behalf of the City in
order to generate credits.
4. The consultant will perform a post-audit review to ensure that
all errors have been corrected and removed from the City's WCB
assessment bill.
Staff involvement in this process is not extensive, but where they are
involved, knowledge transfer is a by-product of the review. Thus, staff
will gain valuable information to help them intelligently review WCB
assessment billings in the future. At this time, staff have neither the
expertise nor the time to conduct such a review.
There is no other company in B.C. offering this service. The partners
of Pacific Risk Management have extensive assessment and claims
experience with the British Columbia WCB. Because of the foregoing, the
normal vendor proposal process for the City is not applicable.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
We do not know if this review will yield savings for the City. However,
because payment for this service is on a contingency basis, the
consultant's fee will be 40% of any refunds actually received by the
City. The on-going savings all accrue to the City, and if there are no
credits or refunds forthcoming, the consultant takes no fee.
CONCLUSION
The review proposed is a no-risk undertaking for the City. Staff do not
have the expertise or time to carry out such a review in the City, and
since PRM is the only firm offering this service that we are aware of,
it is recommended that Council appoint PRM to carry out this review.