Key details reveal how four private sector providers have been told to carry out health and disability benefit assessments over the next five years, after being awarded £2.8 billion-worth of contracts by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
- The contracts were awarded last year to outsourcing giants Capita, Serco, Ingeus UK and Maximus to provide “functional health assessments” from September this year across the UK.
- In each of five UK areas, each contractor will be responsible for providing assessments for personal independence payment (PIP), employment and support allowance, universal credit, and 15 other “specialist” benefits.
- face-to-face assessments will have to take place within a 90-minute public transport journey from the claimant’s home, which the contracts say should be regarded as “an absolute maximum”. Only “a small minority” of claimants should face such a journey, the contracts say.
- All assessments will have to take place in ground-floor locations, which “must be easy for all customers to reach”, unless otherwise agreed in advance with DWP.
- Claimants will only be allowed to “fail to attend” a work capability assessment once – including those carried out by telephone or at home – with their benefit application returned by the contractor to DWP after a second failure.
- Claimants can be accompanied to their assessment by a “companion”, who will be allowed to contribute evidence.
- Every claimant who gives at least one day’s notice will be entitled to have their assessment audio-recorded.
- The contracts also state that only occupational therapists, nurses, physiotherapists and doctors will be able to carry out assessments, while paramedics will only be allowed to carry out PIP assessments, and only “doctors or physiotherapists” who have been “trained to write clerical reports” will be able to carry out WCAs in a claimant’s home.
- In every year of their contracts, the companies will have to increase the number of disabled people they employ on those contracts, and increase the proportion of disabled people working on the contracts.
The successful bidder in Scotland for WCA’s was Maximus. The Scottish government will continue to take responsibility for adult disability payment and child disability payment, its replacements for PIP and disability living allowance
Contracts reveal how companies should carry out benefit assessments over the next five years
