WASHINGTON -- The processing time for disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs worsened in a majority of its regional offices last year, and the VA has struggled with its much-anticipated plan to correct its problems, according to two recent audits and a review of department data.

The result for veterans is longer waits – often for disability decisions that are incorrect.

The declining performance came in a year the VA was working to boost its performance, hoping to meet long-standing department goals to decide veterans’ claims faster and more accurately. Office by office, the department is switching to a new processing system designed to eliminate paper records, curtail pointless shuffling of files and speed decision-making. The VA plans to move all offices to the new system by the end of the year.

In recent months, however, performance has been slipping. Beyond that, two recent audits call into question the VA’s ability to transform the department as planned.

The department’s inspector general, in a report dated last week, said it was too early to know whether the new system would help the VA reached its goals.

The problems “have made the claims process more difficult, rather than improving efficiency as intended,” the report concluded. Users found that documents sometimes took three or four minutes to open. The system repeatedly crashed, and one VA worker told the inspector general it took two hours to process a key part of a claim in the new system – twice as long as in the old system.

The Government Accountability Office, which functions as Congress’ investigative arm, said the VA is proceeding without a clear, comprehensive plan.

“The agency risks spending limited resources on initiatives that may not speed up disability claims and appeals processes,” it concluded. “This may, in turn, result in forcing veterans to continue to wait months and even years to receive compensation for injuries incurred during their service to the country.”

In response to both reports, the VA said much of the criticism was outdated and that the phase-in of its new system allows the department to correct problems along the way. The department said it’s optimistic about hitting its speed and accuracy goals by 2015.

The VA’s disability benefits are awarded to veterans who suffer physical or mental injuries during their military service. They range from $129 a month to $2,816 a month for a single veteran.

The VA has tried for years to reduce the waiting times, even as both younger and older veterans have sent claims skyrocketing to more than 1 million a year.

According to a McClatchy review of department data, the performance at regional offices deteriorated throughout 2012. The department’s long-term goals are that no disability claim is pending more than 125 days and that errors occur in just 2 percent of claims.

From fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2012, the VA's processing speed jumped from an average of 188 days complete a claim to 262 days, according to the VA. The error rate went down slightly, from 16 percent to 14 percent.

In the Wichita, Kan., regional office, which began using the new system for some claims in March, the percentage of claims pending for more than 125 days was 58 percent in January 2012 – and 59 percent in December.