Work Capability Assessment people on ESA said they had "ongoing concerns about the accuracy of the WCA". And in 2014, Atos announced that it had come to the conclusion that "the WCA is not working for claimants, for DWP or for Atos Healthcare". In November 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published its report on the situation facing disabled people in the United Kingdom. Of the WCA, it said: In 2015, Iain Duncan Smith complained that the system gave doctors a "binary choice", not an opportunity to deliver a more nuanced opinion on claimants' fitness for work.
Employment and Support Allowance "quid pro quo" - as it might be applied to sickness benefit claimants. When responding to the Gregg Review, the DWP said that the study had recommended that conditionality be applied to "the vast majority of people in receipt of Employment and Support Allowance". In October 2008, ESA and its eligibility test, the Work Capability Assessment, were introduced for new claims. Reformers were disappointed to find that the total number of people on sickness and incapacity benefits went "up", largely as a result of the financial crisis of 2008 and the consequent rise in background unemployment. Plans were made to