Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment OBR confirmed that the reforms themselves had done nothing to reduce levels of welfare spending — although a simple freezing of benefit payments, so that they did not rise with inflation, had limited the extent of fiscal failure. But in fiscal year 2016-17, the budget in question had nevertheless risen to £15 billion a year. In 2016, the NAO published another evaluation of the DWP's disability assessment contracts: it said the cost of each WCA had risen from £115 under Atos to £190 under Maximus, to no benefit to the Exchequer. A former chief economist at the DWP, Professor Jonathan
Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment cost to the taxpayer" because the independent tribunals that corrected the wrong decisions, funded by the Ministry of Justice, added a further £50m a year to the costs. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) found that in the period up to 2014, no savings had been made in the sickness benefit budget, which remained at more than £13 billion a year. In 2015, because many more claimants than forecast were now being placed in the Support Group, the government's fiscal watchdog had to raise its estimate for annual spending on ESA by at least one billion pounds. In 2016 the