Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2022 to Question 128374, on Social Security Benefits: Medical Examinations, if she will instruct officials to undertake an independent audit of the accuracy of surveys undertaken by her Department’s contracted assessor companies.

The department currently has no intention to undertake an independent audit of the accuracy of the customer satisfaction surveys.

Independent Assessment Services (IAS), Capita and Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA) customer satisfaction surveys are undertaken by independent third parties in line with the requirements of their individual contracts. Customer satisfaction rate is a Service Level Agreement within the contracts which attracts service credits for failure. All providers have consistently exceeded their customer satisfaction targets. Furthermore, we regularly review survey responses and feedback with providers, to identify any issues or trends and help us manage the performance of these contracts.