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
Workfare in the United Kingdom benefits" either for a company, or in the public sector, or what has been called "bogus volunteering" for a charity. This is undertaken as the condition of still being able to claim unemployment benefit, as distinct from claimants receiving that but also being in receipt of "a small supplemental payment". As such, it can be argued that welfare to work/"active labour market policies" first properly appeared in the early 1980s along with mass unemployment, in the form of the state run Manpower Services Commission created by the Heath government in the early 1970s whilst Full Employment still existed, along with