A backlog of more than 30,000 veterans' compensation claims may not be cleared by a deadline set down by a royal commission.
A Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide called for the massive list to be finalised by March 2024.
The backlog includes any claim submitted to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, regardless of how old.
A progress report released by Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh showed the department expected to clear claims in the initial liability category - when a compensation claim was first lodged - by the end of the year and months ahead of schedule.
But the deadline for the permanent impairment category - the second stage of the process - might not be met.
"The permanent impairment portion of the total backlog is more challenging and may take a few months longer than March 2024 to clear," the department report said.
"All efforts are being made to accelerate processing of permanent impairment claims."
The latest data shows the total number of outstanding claims as of July was 30,108.
This was down from a peak of 45,000 claims in September 2022.
In the initial liability category, there were 17,711 compensation requests as of July, while in the permanent impairment category the backlog is now 12,041.
The number of outstanding claims had dropped for consecutive months from May to July.
Mr Keogh said the government was taking the royal commission and its findings extremely seriously.
"I’m determined to make sure the government delivers the services and supports our defence personnel need and deserve," he told AAP.
"It’s why we responded quickly to the interim report and why we have now taken action on each of the recommendations of that report."
The government has invested $233.9 million over four years to hire an additional 500 staff to process the claims. It expects the recruitment of the workers to be completed by October.
As of June, there were 754 full-time workers doing the processing.
The government's response shows all but two recommendations from the interim report have been implemented or are in progress.
Recommendations made to provide an exemption from parliamentary privilege and limit public interest immunity claims have been noted by the government.
Melbourne-based army veteran Lucas Moon, the Hawthorn RSL sub-branch spokesman, said ex-serving personnel would be relying on the department to eliminate the backlog on time.
"It shows to me that DVA, even though it has been put on the blowtorch ... that they still can't seem to meet their promises," he said.
Mr Moon called for the definition of the backlog to be changed so claims would be classed by a set amount of time.
The government is also seeking to better support veterans’ and their families move to civilian life after service through a new strategy and to simplify laws governing the pathways to compensation.
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