Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to publish data on the effectiveness of the legacy benefits system in responding to increased demand for work capability assessments including the (a) number of referrals for work capability assessments and (b) average length of time between notification of a health condition and referral for that work capability assessment being made during the covid-19 outbreak.

Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA) outcomes are published quarterly. The latest figures covering a) the number and outcome of completed initial and repeat WCAs by month of claim up to September 2019 and b) the median end-to-end clearance time which includes ‘claim registration to WCA referral’ by month of clearance up to December 2019 can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/employment-and-support-allowance-outcomes-of-work-capability-assessment

Additional breakdowns of the ESA WCA figures can be found at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance for users is available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html

The statistics for completed assessments to March 2020 and June 2020 will be published in September and December 2020 respectively and there are currently no plans to publish any additional statistics in those releases.

The following special points should be noted:

We have no plans to publish any additional statistics beyond the already agreed ESA WCA publication schedule.

The published statistics include:

a) WCA numbers and outcomes for completed initial and repeat assessments up to end of December 2019;

b) WCA outcomes by claim start date (up to September 2019) or WCA date (up to December 2019). WCA outcome information is only published for referrals that have completed the WCA and have an outcome;

c) Median end-to-end clearance time which includes ‘claim registration to WCA referral’ by month of clearance up to December 2019. The definition is shown below:

‘Claim registration to WCA referral' measures the time taken from claim registration date to the case's referral date to the WCA assessment provider. Only claims that have completed the WCA process and have an outcome are included. The claim registration date is the date the claimant has first contact with the Department when making a claim to ESA. Referral start date is the date the claimant is referred to the healthcare provider for assessment.