Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment 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. In April 2016, the new Welfare Secretary, Stephen Crabb, said that the WCA had "never worked as intended. The WCA was a mess, it didn't recognise mental health issues and other types
Work Capability Assessment upheaval in the testing process, a Green Paper provided more evidence that a "de facto" outcome target had been in operation during the first part of the Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme. In 2016, the government conceded that: In December 2016, the DWP released data on outcomes covering the first quarter of that year: then, for the small number of Incapacity Benefit recipients undergoing a WCA for the first time, the percentage being placed in the Support Group after their assessment was 87%, while 39% of "new" claimants qualified for the Support Group immediately after their WCA. Professor Dame Carol Black