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
Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment of policy from 2010 until 2015, declared: "We need to think again about how we assess work capability" because "capability assessors too often have a culture of disbelief about disability, especially mental illness". Parliament's Office of Science and Technology has analysed the WCA's performance; it found that "the number of fit-for-work decisions being overturned on appeal has led to questions about the reliability of the assessment process". Between 2011 and 2013, around 40% of claimants found 'fit for work' appealed to a tribunal and around 40% of those appeals were successful. A 2012 study of 28,000 tribunal hearings analysed the