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,
Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment February 2018 Baroness Altmann, a former minister at the DWP, said: DWP figures show that, between January and November 2011, 10,600 sick and disabled people died within six weeks of their benefit claim ending; many disability campaigners believe that these deaths occurred after — and even "because" — the claimants were declared fit for work. "The Daily Telegraph" has questioned this: it posits that the 10,600 deaths include people who happened to die from natural causes, "after" which their benefit payments ceased. The newspaper said that when the DWP states "within six weeks", this "does not mean 'within the following