Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the United Kingdom to assess some new claims for Universal Credit and to reassess established recipients of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Concerns have been raised over its design, its reliability in practice, its value-for-money, and the effect of wrong decisions on vulnerable claimants.

Its designers believe the test has been at least adequate from the start, while the DWP's press releases have emphasised the modifications made to the test since its inception in 2008. The DWP does not accept that there is a causal relationship between the 'roll out' of the WCA and the deaths of people in receipt of sickness and disability benefits.

A review undertaken by occupational heath expert Professor Malcolm Harrington in 2010 found that the test was "impersonal", it "lacked empathy" and it was too reliant on "computer systems and drop-down menus". In the executive summary of his report, he wrote that "the WCA is not working as well as it should. There are clear and consistent criticisms of the whole system and much negativity surrounding the process" but he felt that the suggestions he was making would improve the process, if adopted by the DWP.

In February 2011, Professor Paul Gregg, an economist and one of the original architects of ESA, warned that the WCA was "badly malfunctioning" and urged further pilot studies before the new version was used to retest existing sickness benefit recipients. Three months later, six experts in mental health — including the chief executive of MIND, who was already a senior advisor to the DWP on the WCA — wrote to The Guardian to say that the test was "deeply flawed".

In 2013, the DWP published an 'evidence-based review' of the WCA. The department said "a steering group of experts chaired by Professor Harrington oversaw the study" and named the lead experts as a professor of psychiatry, a consultant psychiatrist in learning disability, a professor of rheumatology, and an expert in human resources. The review's conclusion was that "the WCA produced consistent results on the whole, and is an accurate indicator of work capability compared with expert opinion".

The following year Atos Healthcare, the firm that had carried out the WCA on behalf of the DWP since 2008, said it had come to the conclusion that "in its current form, the WCA is not working for claimants, for DWP or for Atos Healthcare". Conversely, a few months later, Dr Paul Litchfield, who had recently replaced Professor Harrington as the external reviewer of the WCA, described the test he had once helped to design as "by no means perfect" but nevertheless adequate.Professor Dame Carol Black advised the government on back-to-work policy for a decade. In 2016, she said of the WCA: "I don't think anyone thinks it has been a success".

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