PCS: “we do not believe there is any real quality
control”
This week on Wednesday 6 December at 0930 the Committee will
question DWP contractors Atos, Capita and Maximus, who carry
out the medical assessments for disability benefits PIP and ESA,
putting the disturbing evidence it has heard so far to them. The
Committee is also publishing the contractors’written evidence ahead of
their oral testimony.
The unprecedented public response to the Committee’s inquiry has
included thousands of individual accounts of medical assessments
that range from frustrating to gruelling, and oral testimony from
claimants and advocacy groups in the first evidence session
strongly reinforced that picture. Many claimants of ESA and
PIP in particular challenge the DWP benefit decision based on
these medical assessments, first through “Mandatory
Reconsideration”, and then a final appeal stage at a tribunal.
However, in May of this year an FOI request revealed that DWP
sets a target for 80% of Mandatory Reconsiderations to uphold the
original decision. The Committee today publishes a letter
to DWP asking how such a target is compatible with a
fair and impartial reconsideration process. High proportions of
DWP decisions for both benefits are overturned at the tribunal
appeal stage, sometimes with a radically different award being
decided.
The Committee previously published evidence from the Public
and Commercial Services Union, representing the DWP
staff who use the medical assessments to make benefits decisions.
In that evidence PCS says “our members report that there are
regular examples where
the level of expertise of the person carrying out the
assessment does not appear to match the requirements of the
health condition being assessed…” and that“we do
not believe that there is any real quality control. Previous
contracts have only been terminated when failings reached extreme
levels.”
DWP has today released statistics on the proportion of medical
assessments that are deemed “unacceptable” when they are sent to
the Department by contractors Atos (IAS on the chart below) and
Capita. The charts appear to show remarkably high, if slowly
improving, levels of unacceptable reports, in Capita’s case at
least with extraordinary fluctuations. Key points:
- Neither
contractor has, at any point in the PIP contract, met the
performance target of 3% of reports deemed “unacceptable”.
- Capita’s
own auditing found that at points in the contract almost 60% of
its reports were “unacceptable”.
Notes:
DWP stats source: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/664242/work-and-pensions-select-committee-pip-and-esa-assessments-inquiry-supporting-statistics.pdf
