Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the providers for ESA assessments have met their minimum contractual performance standards at any point since the beginning of their contract.

Work Capability Assessments are delivered through the Health and Disability Assessment Services contract delivered by the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA). The requirements set out in the contract are demanding and CHDA are expected to deliver to high standards across all areas of the contract, including volumes, quality and customer satisfaction. Contractual targets and provider performance is formally reviewed monthly and actions put in place to improve on any under achievement. Since the beginning of the contract CHDA have consistently met or exceeded some of these measures each month and have never failed to meet all of them at any one point in time.