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 remaining 37% ceased claiming for unspecified reasons in the course of the 13-week application and assessment process; some might have abandoned a weak claim as the assessment approached, others might have recovered from their illness, injury or recent surgery or found a new job - the proportions are unknown. When the unassessed 37% are removed from the equation, the results were: Commentators and policy-makers suspected that a large chunk of people on Incapacity Benefit had got better but had kept this quiet and were still receiving payments. Another, more charitable, view was that recent disability legislation and changes in the