Work Capability Assessment to the DWP and would no longer be allowed to recommend any claimants for the Support Group without asking for permission first. When the doctor asked an experienced assessor where these rules had come from, she replied: "DWP". Both the DWP and Atos categorically denied ever having had any target for getting claimants "off" sickness benefits. However, both eventually admitted that Support Group "norms" were being used nationwide, though they both denied that the purpose of "targeted audit" was to limit the number of claimants placed in the Support Group. Atos said that the audit process triggered by the breach
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