2014: Is This The DWP's Annus Horribilis? by Work Test Whistleblower

January

• PIP fails in its primary purpose. The scheme to reassess most of the people already on DLA, with a view to cutting their benefits, sinks without trace. Not even the DWP pretends this one's on track.
• A growing backlog of claimants forces the DWP to stop repeatedly assessing people on ESA. Another welfare 'reform' bites the dust.

February

• Atos quits! After months of secret talks, Atos reveals that it wants nothing more to do with the WCA process, partly because the WCA itself doesn't actually work.

March

• No one else seems to want the WCA contract either. No company put in a bid to work alongside Atos in 2014, so the DWP withdraws the invitation it put out in September 2013.
• When the Coalition "inherited" it, the WCA process was "riddled with problems", the Disabilities Minister now declares. 'So why did they expand its use to test the millions of people already settled on IB?' nobody in public life seems to ask.
• The reassessment of established IB recipients is put on hold.

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