15/11/2011

The changes include:‘Additional support to claimants’:Work Capability Assessment decision makers will call Employment Seekers Allowance claimants ‘to talk through decisions and discuss options after the assessment. If a claim is likely to be unsuccessful, the decision maker will call the claimant prior to making a final decision, to check that they have all the available evidence to make a decision and explain next steps.' This follows an additional letter explaining the WCA process.

Other changes seem to be designed to improve the performance of decision makers, who are to be put ‘at the heart of the decision making process’, in brief these include:

‘Quality Checks: New quality checks aim to identify any errors and to establish if the decision maker uses a consistent approach to gathering, weighing and presenting evidence’.

‘Learning and Development: Our new learning and development package ensures decision makers understand the WCA process, their role in it and how to gather and use all the available evidence to make better quality decisions.'

‘Establishing a decision-making forum: The forum will be a ‘channel for Decision Makers to raise issues and share best practice’.

The changes will affect allnew claims and existing claimants being re-referred for a WCA on and after 31 October. They were published in the DWP Touchbase magazine available at: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/touchbase-ezine-november-2011.pdf

Inclusion London believes that disabled people should be put at the heart of the decision making process, and doubts whether the changes brought in by the DWP will substantially improve disabled people’s experience of the WCA and recommend that the DWP adopts SCOPE’s alternative assessment which takes account of the social, practical and environmental barriers disabled people experience, which is available at: http://www.scope.org.uk/campaigns/publications/future-pip