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 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