Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment OBR confirmed that the reforms themselves had done nothing to reduce levels of welfare spending — although a simple freezing of benefit payments, so that they did not rise with inflation, had limited the extent of fiscal failure. But in fiscal year 2016-17, the budget in question had nevertheless risen to £15 billion a year. In 2016, the NAO published another evaluation of the DWP's disability assessment contracts: it said the cost of each WCA had risen from £115 under Atos to £190 under Maximus, to no benefit to the Exchequer. A former chief economist at the DWP, Professor Jonathan
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