Work Capability Assessment to the DWP and would no longer be allowed to recommend any claimants for the Support Group without asking for permission first. When the doctor asked an experienced assessor where these rules had come from, she replied: "DWP". Both the DWP and Atos categorically denied ever having had any target for getting claimants "off" sickness benefits. However, both eventually admitted that Support Group "norms" were being used nationwide, though they both denied that the purpose of "targeted audit" was to limit the number of claimants placed in the Support Group. Atos said that the audit process triggered by the breach
Incapacity Benefit workplace might have removed some of the barriers to disabled people returning to work. In two pilot studies of the Work Capability Assessment as a tool for judging the fitness for work of long-term Incapacity Benefit recipients – when 1,347 disabled people living in Aberdeen and Burnley, who had been on their benefit for at least two years, were assessed in late 2010 – provisional results suggested that: The reliability of this provisional data has been challenged, since many of those categorised as 'fit for work' subsequently won their appeals against the initial decision, suggesting that the results of the