The Spectator Coffeehouse site says it was leaked to them by a whistleblower. They go on to say that it has been produced by ATOS:
“to keep tabs on the centres that carry out the assessments (the DWP makes the final fitness-to-work decision based on the scores from these tests). It marks the centres against ‘statistical norms’ – a national average of the percentage of applicants for Employment and Support Allowance whose scores fit them into certain groups, such as the Support Group which entails the highest level of benefit.
Centres scoring above average are highlighted in pink for each group, while blue cells denote an unacceptably low number of allocations.”
They continue that while there is nothing wrong with a company keeping tabs on how its centres are performing, “the norms could start to influence the scores that are awarded to claimants, rather than scores being awarded on the basis of the condition of the applicant who arrives at the test centre.
They acknowledge that “centres that are above average could still be awarding the correct test results.”
ATOS, naturally, denies using these norms as targets. A spokesperson told the Spectator:
“ATOS Healthcare does not have targets. Norms are used solely as a management and quality assurance tool and are not used to drive individual outcomes.
‘Audits will only ever be conducted by ATOS Healthcare on the WCA report itself, never the outcome of a benefit claim. Audits are always conducted by experienced clinicians. Reports are never changed in order to achieve an expected norm. Changes may be made following an audit if there are inconsistencies in the report, if the advice is not clinically reasonable or there is a lack of clinical justification.’
A DWP spokesperson told the Spectator:
‘This is an “exception report” and not a set of targets. It helps to show where sites are above or below normal range on different indicators and in spotting trends so that we can better understand any variations.
‘Sites are not made to change their practice based on the information but instead, where relevant, report on reasons for the variation.
‘ATOS Healthcare does not have performance targets or incentives around the number of people qualifying for benefit and does not make decisions on benefit entitlement.’Readers, given our experiences and knowledge of WCAs and the way they are carried out, given all the problems we have had with them up to this point, it would be very easy to see why disabled people and carers would find it very difficult to believe that these ‘norms’ are not being used as targets.
In fact you don’t have to look much further than this to see that there is evidence that they are.
