Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment thereby saving £7billion a year. A reassessment of long-term recipients was expected to start in 2009 but the start was delayed until 2011 while the test's criteria were reviewed. In 2012, the DWP's handling of its contract with Atos was the subject of a critical report by the National Audit Office (NAO). The Public Accounts Committee heard that in that year the DWP had paid Atos £112m to carry out WCAs. The chair of the committee told the BBC that the DWP got "far too many decisions wrong on claimants’ ability to work" and that this came at a "considerable
Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment investigation regarding those deaths by an independent body". In October 2018, the Scottish National Party used Prime Minister's Questions to ask Theresa May about the WCA and the suicide or self-harm of people going through it (an issue that is covered in detail on the Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment page). Polly MacKenzie is the director of the think-tank Demos. Previously, she helped draw up the Coalition Agreement in 2010 that foresaw the Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme going ahead and she was Nick Clegg's director of policy until 2015. In 2018, she was quoted by "The Observer" as saying