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
Incapacity Benefit and cognitive descriptors" but the DWP's own doctors were not convinced by the evidence presented. The department decided to set up an 'evidence-based review' to look in more detail at the proposed changes, which concluded that the existing criteria "produced consistent results on the whole" and that the WCA was already "an accurate indicator of work capability as compared with expert opinion". DWP ministers replaced Professor Harrington once he had submitted his third annual report in 2012. In 2013, "The Guardian" quoted Professor Harrington as saying: "I would have preferred to do a roll-out [the IB reassessment] in the second