A report from the National Audit Office has said that the Department for Work and Pensions has failed to penalise private provider Atos for 'under-performance' on the contract to manage the Work Capability Assessment for Employment and Support Allowance. In addition, the DWP had not set 'sufficiently challenging targets'. In response to the report Labour MP Tom Greatrex asked the NAO to review the contract, and there was widespread media reporting of the reply he received from the Comptroller and Auditor General. Mr Greatrex pointed out that the contract, which is for 738,000 assessments, is worth £112 million a year, but that appeals against the test results are costing £60 million a year. He said 'People who are genuinely sick and disabled need to be helped, not hounded'. Journalists from the BBC, who had seen the letter from the Auditor General, reported that it said that it was difficult to assess whether the quality of the test or its design was responsible for the fact that nearly 40 per cent of appeals against ESA decisions were successful. TUC Senior welfare expert Richard Exell said 'With appeals adding more than fifty per cent to the bill from Atos, this episode illustrates the risks of privatisation and contracting-out. The Work Capability Assessment is a terrible example of how not to design and implement welfare reform - re-testing is an embarrassment for the government, a headache for the DWP and a nightmare for claimants.' The DWP had previously admitted that Atos had not carried out some fitness testing within the agreed time limits, and performance had been "below the standard" since mid-2011.
