To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made on meeting their targets on work capability assessments for disabled people.
Answered on
23 January 2018
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decision makers have no targets that relate to the number of people placed in the Support Group, Work Related Activity Group or found fit for work following a work capability assessment.
The current contractual agreement between the DWP and the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments contains numerous performance targets including throughput, claimant service and work capability assessment report quality, which also contain automatic financial remedies where there is service level failure. There are no targets specifying that certain numbers of people should be allowed or disallowed benefit.
The contractual performance of Centre for Health and Disability Assessments is monitored closely by the DWP. Since Centre for Health and Disability Assessments took on the contract, we have halved work capability assessment waiting times, down from 32 weeks in August 2014 to 16 weeks in March 2017.