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,
Employment and Support Allowance describe this idea and referred to it in-house as "the AME-DEL switch". In July 2008 a Green Paper was published, which James Purnell said was "inspired by the reforms proposed by David Freud". It declared that "between 2009 and 2013, all Incapacity Benefit claimants will be reassessed using a medical assessment called the Work Capability Assessment" that would divide them into three groups: fit for work; unfit for work but fit for "work-related activity"; or fit for neither. In the same month, Professor Paul Gregg was asked by the DWP to conduct a feasibility study of "conditionality" - a compulsory