Work Capability Assessment

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I cannot respond to the specific case that the noble Baroness mentioned, but I will write to her. I can only repeat what I have already said. This is not a question of keeping information from individuals. As I said in the Statement, the reviews that we carry out—84 since 2015—contain extremely personal information. It would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion. We instituted a change in October 2015 when we moved from peer reviews to the internal review process to ensure that we can hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal review process. In line with the department’s document retention policy, any records of whether peer reviews and coroners’ reports since 2010 were either requested by or shared with the independent reviewers of the work capability assessment do not exist. As I said, we keep the information for six years from the date of the final report in the case of the reports and active emails—the day-to-day business of the department—for only one year.

I stress, however, that we take this situation and this issue very seriously. I do not accept that the department has in any way sought to withhold information for any ulterior motive. The department works hard to do the right thing. If one looked across the private and public sectors, one would see that the period for which we hold information of this kind is absolutely in line with normal practice.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend clarify one issue? Are we making changes to the work capability assessment to support claimants?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank my noble friend for that question because this instance relates to the work capability assessment. As I said, we carry out an independent review of any case where there has been a death by suicide. Yes, we are working hard to reassess the work capability assessments to support claimants and we will integrate the services that deliver both PIP and the WCA from 2021. We are testing the feasibility of having one assessment for people who apply for PIP and universal credit at the same time and we will test how to build better relationships with universal credit customers awaiting an assessment or in the limited capability for work group by changing how conditionality is tailored. We also want to explore whether we can improve the mandatory reconsideration process to reduce the volume of cases going to appeal. All of this of course goes towards doing everything we can to support claimants and reassure them through the process of obtaining support.