As has been said on numerous occasions, although Atos' performance has been very poor for a long time, the main problem is the WCA as illnesses and disabilities cannot always be conveniently pigeonholed into tick boxes. In the first 9 months of 2013/14 we have had over 107,000 successful ESA appeals (with the success rate for the last quarter having risen yet again to 45%). That is in addition to many thousands more that have been overturned on reconsideration.
I doubt that anybody seriously believes that Atos have quit the contract due to death threats. They have quit because their brand has become toxic because of their failures re the WCA and because they are a convenient scapegoat for the incompetence of DWP ministers. As long as the politicians from the main parties continue to support the current flawed assessment process, little will change imo.
I still find it laughable when people try and claim it was easy to get benefits under Labour. I am no fan of theirs but a bit of basic research of the DWP's benefits tables shows that claimant numbers for sickness benefits (ie Invalidity Benefit/Incapacity Benefit/ESA/SDA) went up by more than 2.1 million under the last Tory government but fell by around 150,000 under Labour.
The other thing that is laughable is when people try to claim that benefit fraud is much higher than the official figures (usually because they claim to know people who are fiddling the system...although the self-proclaimed medical experts always seem to have no medical qualifications, no sight of the claimant's claim file and have not conducted a suitable physical/mental assessment). Again a few minutes' research will show that the fraud rates are done within 95% confidence intervals (ie re the headline figure for all benefits of 0.7%, the DWP are 95% confident that the true figure is somewhere between 0.6% and 1%). The National Fraud Office have also confirmed that the fraud figure of £1.2bn pa covers "identified and hidden" fraud as well as giving the estimate the top, green "BRAG" status, meaning they have "excellent" confidence in the figure quoted.
It is really sad that a tiny minority try to claim that sickness and disability fraud is much higher than what is shown in the official figures and credible evidence. Their unsubstantiated claims can be safely dismissed and I actually pity those people who feel the need to adopt such behaviour.
Re the number of claims that are closed before assessment, again a bit of research (and basic common sense) shows that a major reason(from DWP research) is that people recover and return to work or move onto JSA etc. That is even more the case given that so few assessments are actually done within 13 weeks (the average was 19/20 weeks according to DWP figures).
If anybody is interested in the most recent DWP figures for ESA eligibility after assessment, they are:
New Claims - 66% entitled, 34% "fit for work"
Repeat Claims -91% entitled, 9% "fit for work"
IB migration - 87% entitled, 13% "fit for work"
The percentage that are entitled will increase after all appeals are heard.
It is, again worth stressing the words of the Work & Pensions Committee re "fit for work". They said:
" being found "fit for work" does not equate to denial or disbelief about the existence of an illness or health condition: rather the condition is acknowledged but its impact has been assessed as not being so serious as to prevent the person from returning to work at some point in the future. "