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,
Work Capability Assessment were not convinced by the evidence presented. The other legacy of his tenure was the introduction in 2011 of the 'personalised summary statement'. This was intended to be a written explanation to the "claimant" in plain English of how the assessor's recommendation had been reached, but the DWP decided not to send them to claimants; instead, the department sent a 'decision-makers justification' written by a civil servant. Nevertheless, the DWP insisted that assessors still write summaries, saying that decision-makers found them helpful when trying to understand the main reports. The DWP decided to set up an 'evidence-based review' — overseen