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
Work Capability Assessment from start to finish by Professor Harrington and to run in parallel with his annual reports for Parliament — to look at the WCA. This 'evidence-based review' did not publish its findings until December 2013 — three years after it had originally been conceived — by which time most of the Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme had been completed. The review concluded that the proposed alternative assessment was less accurate than the WCA and that "the WCA produced consistent results on the whole, and is an accurate indicator of work capability as compared with expert opinion". DWP ministers decided to replace