The original copy can be found here. WCA is the Work Capability Assessment. Professor Harrington is tasked with year reviews of implementation.
 
Prof. Malcolm Harrington
WCA Independent Review
2nd floor Caxton House
Tothill St
London, SW1H 9NA  
 
Rt. Hon. Chris Grayling MP
Minister of State for Employment
Department for Work and Pensions
4th floor Caxton House
Tothill St
London, SW1H 9NA  
 
31 May 2011
 
 
Dear Chris,
 
RE: INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE WCA – INTERIM REPORT ON
IMPLEMENTATION OF YEAR 1 RECOMMENDATIONS
 
Thank you for your letter of 10th May 2011 asking me to provide you with an Interim
Report on the progress so far in implementing the recommendations I made in my
Report of November 2010.
 
In carrying out this interim report I have visited the Incapacity Benefit reassessment trial
site in Aberdeen and also the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and Benefit Delivery Centre (BDC)
in Plymouth (one of the first places I visited during my first review). I recognise that
these are only two sites of a national organisation, but I have also spoken to policy
officials in both the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and JCP about how the
recommendations are being implemented at a national level; and I met with a group of
some of the large national charities.
 
These are my personal observations and I have not shared this note with DWP or JCP
prior to sending it to you. However, my Scrutiny Group has had advance notice of it.
 
My Review listed 25 recommendations, 17 of which related to the Year 1 review and 8
concerned new work to be undertaken in 2011. In January 2011, I added a further
piece of work about the wording of the descriptors used for claimants on chemotherapy.
(Macmillan are due to report back on this and make initial recommendations by the end
of June).
 
Year 1 recommendations 1-4 and 10-14 addressed how JCP/BDC staff should handle
the claimants in a more empathetic and less mechanistic way and how the Decision
Makers (DM) should be put back at the heart of the decision making process.
Recommendations 5-9 were aimed at improving the Atos assessment, whilst 15-17
looked at the ways in which the Tribunal Service (TS) could add value to the overall
Work Capability Assessment (WCA).
 
I am pleased to say that the DWP/JCP have gone a long way towards implementing all
the recommendations related to their areas of activity. New learning and development
packages have been produced to retrain the DM’s and additional training is to be
provided for the line managers. New scripts and letters have been designed to improve
the telephonic and written communications with the claimants. These new initiatives to
assist the claimants in their ‘journey’ are in place or planned.
 
Has this worked in practice? From what I’ve seen and heard, yes it has. In Aberdeen, I
saw the new system in place and working. In other areas of the country – such as
Plymouth – the staff are aware of what is planned, and the DMs are already beginning
to feel empowered to make decisions that do not simply ‘rubber stamp’ Atos
recommendations. The managers are providing greater scope for the staff to be
innovative and self motivated, with fewer ‘boxes to tick’ and more opportunity to take
control of smoothing the claimant’s progress through the WCA by information, advice
and support. The emphasis, at present, is on Incapacity Benefit reassessment but this
is already being extended to new Employment and Support Allowance claimants.
 
One area of potential concern in the JCP is the ‘silo’ mentality in some quarters where
some staff do not have an understanding of the whole WCA process, but only their
section. I have discussed this with senior managers and they assure me that work will
start soon to improve inter-sectional communication. On a more positive note,
Aberdeen had been training DMs to be Appeals Officers and vice-versa and this
appears to have led to a real enrichment of job experience. Similarly, DMs in Aberdeen
reported that enhanced communications with Atos had improved their understanding of
the reports provided by the face-to-face assessment.
 
Whilst real progress is being made at the Centres, there is a danger that middle and
upper ranking managers will see targets for ‘throughput’ slipping or impose new targets.
I hope this attitude can be countered by emphasising that a little time spent at this
stage should save much more time later by reducing appeals and subsequent angst
and worry for claimants. The overall cost of a claim should consequently fall as well. In
addition, a greater use of the reconsideration procedure is already underway and this
should ensure that DM’s have all the additional information about their client’s condition
before recourse to the TS in cases of dispute.
 
Atos Healthcare have nearly completed work on all the recommendations related to
them. The free text paragraph is not yet provided to claimants but the issues related to
the timing of JCP sharing this, and the claimants who should receive it, are matters I
am actively discussing with the DWP. The Mental Function Champions are either in
place or will be soon – but at a regional level. Logistically this probably makes more
sense than my original proposal for a Mental Function champion in every Assessment
Centre given the small size and geographical spread of some of the Centres. I hope to
be kept updated with evidence that the proposed approach is having the desired
impact.
 

The Atos Customer Charter is now in place and being displayed at all Assessment
Centres. A pilot of the audio recording of face-to-face assessments has also been
completed in Newcastle, and I look forward to hearing more about the evaluation of this
in due course.
 
I have had some useful discussions with the First Tier and the Upper Tier Tribunal
judges. I know that they want my recommendations to work and they are actively
engaged in improving communications between the judges and the DMs. Training
programmes for both the medical members and the judges will be discussed with me in
the coming months but my initial impressions are that these training programmes look
good.
 
Unfortunately the charities did not report back the types of positive changes I had seen
in Aberdeen and Plymouth. Whilst they were broadly supportive of the customer
journeys used for IB reassessment in Aberdeen and Burnley I hope they will begin to
report more positive changes as the year progresses and the changes become
nationwide, and I will ask about this in my call for evidence later this year.
 
Year 2 recommendations relate to new work. Mind, Mencap and the National Autistic
Society have worked on the mental, intellectual and cognitive descriptors and their
proposals have been scrutinised by an expert group of my choosing. They have
developed – in an iterative way – agreed descriptors that have been put before the
DWP. Similar work (carried out in a similar way) has started on the Fluctuating
Conditions descriptors. Initial proposals from a group of charities, led by the Multiple
Sclerosis Society, are now with another expert group for further iteration. I expect an
agreed set of recommendations by mid July.
 
The Citizens Advice Bureau are working on the validity of a ‘real world’ test and a
seminar in the autumn will bring together interested parties – including the TUC and the
CBI – to see if such a test is a viable proposition.
 
Research protocols to look at the fate of people who apply for ESA but drop out of the
WCA process before their face-to-face assessment and those who are deemed
borderline between the three categories (Fit for Work, Work Related Activity, and
Support group) have been drafted and agreed by me. Work will start soon on the actual
research.
 
Finally, a review of the LiMA system (does it drive the assessors behaviour or can the
assessor drive the IT?) is underway. Seminars to demonstrate the software to
interested groups are planned for June and views on the LiMA system will be sought as
part of this year’s Call for Evidence.
 
I will, of course, provide further details on all of these in my final review at the end of the
year.
 
In short, I am pleased and gratified to see the progress that has been made to
implement my recommendations. I detect a real enthusiasm for change at the
JCP/BDC local level and real commitment from senior officials in Caxton House to convert these recommendations into real and lasting policy changes. Some cultural
inertia exists in middle management but I am speaking to DWP/JCP about this and
understand they are working to change the ethos and attitudes here as well. This
change will be critical in supporting my recommendations and their success.
 
As a result of all this, I believe that the WCA can become less mechanistic, more
empathetic and more evidence-based. The result would be a fairer system.
 
Best wishes,
 
 
Professor Malcolm Harrington CBE