PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Work Capability Assessment (21 March 2018)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's internal review in 2009 of the descriptors in the work capability assessment, if she will publish the evidential basis for the choice of descriptors used in the work capability assessment; and whether her Department (a) consulted external bodies and (b) commissioned independent research when deciding on those descriptors.

Asked by:
Marsha De Cordova (Labour)

The review engaged with medical experts, stakeholders and employers in expert case analysis and group descriptor analysis.

Details of how the review was conducted and what evidence was taken into account before the group proposed descriptors for the Work Capability Assessment can be found in the published report:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110601194444/http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/work-capability-assessment-review.pdf

In November 2010, Professor Malcolm Harrington published his Independent Review of the Work Capability Assessment, the first of five annual Independent Reviews.

Answered by:
Sarah Newton (Conservative)
28 March 2018