Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment the "written" guidance contained in the 255-page instruction manual issued to all assessors: The foreword to the WCA Handbook states: On 22 July 2013, the DWP announced that all Atos WCA assessors would be retrained, as part of a "quality improvement plan" that followed "a DWP audit which identified an unacceptable reduction in the quality of written reports produced following assessments." In 2006, the New Labour government set out its plans for welfare reform: over the course of a decade, it expected the deployment of the WCA to shrink the number of people on out-of-work sickness benefits by one million,
Incapacity Benefit year [2012]" and as having told the DWP this before the Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme began. The DWP told the newspaper it had no record of a warning of this kind being given by Professor Harrington. Furthermore, the minister who had formally initiated the 'roll out' had said in Parliament that beforehand Professor Harrington had told him: "I believe the system is in sufficient shape for you to proceed with Incapacity Benefit reassessment". When asked later about this discrepancy, Professor Harrington replied: The Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme had originally been expected to save seven billion pounds a year from the