Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment thereby saving £7billion a year. A reassessment of long-term recipients was expected to start in 2009 but the start was delayed until 2011 while the test's criteria were reviewed. In 2012, the DWP's handling of its contract with Atos was the subject of a critical report by the National Audit Office (NAO). The Public Accounts Committee heard that in that year the DWP had paid Atos £112m to carry out WCAs. The chair of the committee told the BBC that the DWP got "far too many decisions wrong on claimants’ ability to work" and that this came at a "considerable
Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment cost to the taxpayer" because the independent tribunals that corrected the wrong decisions, funded by the Ministry of Justice, added a further £50m a year to the costs. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) found that in the period up to 2014, no savings had been made in the sickness benefit budget, which remained at more than £13 billion a year. In 2015, because many more claimants than forecast were now being placed in the Support Group, the government's fiscal watchdog had to raise its estimate for annual spending on ESA by at least one billion pounds. In 2016 the