Page 47 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

2.51 We therefore recommend that health and disability assessments should no
longer be outsourced to private companies and should be conducted by
HCPs employed directly by the DWP together with clear channels of
accountability and grievance procedures. This will be a significant step in
restoring trust in the system and improving the quality of health and disability
assessments, especially if combined with the introduction of an independent
regulator/adjudicator as outlined in paragraph 2.100 below. We note that as
part of the DWP’s health transformation programme pilot, health and
disability assessments will be carried out by the DWP rather than an
outsourced provider, although the intention is for assessments to continue to
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be carried out by contracted companies outside of the pilot. This pilot could
be a welcome opportunity to assess the desirability and feasibility of bringing
health and disability assessments back ‘in-house’ and to learn lessons as to the
best way to carry out ‘in-house’ assessments.

Sanctions

2.52 The aim of conditionality and sanctions is to motivate claimants to engage
with employment support and move into work. The Welfare Reform Act
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2012 is the foundation of today’s conditionality and sanctions regime. It
established the rules for UC and amended those for legacy benefits so that
they were broadly aligned. In doing so, it increased the length and severity of
sanctions and made them applicable to more claimants than ever before. 119 By
their nature sanctions threaten some level of hardship. At the highest level,
UC claimants can be sanctioned for 13 weeks for a first higher-level sanction
120
and 26 weeks for any further higher-level sanction in any 364-day period.

117 DWP, ‘Announcement on Health and Disability Assessment Services UIN HCWS138’ (2 March
2020).
118 DWP, ‘Written Evidence from the Department of Work and Pensions ANC0083’ (May 2018).
119 National Audit Office, Benefit Sanctions (HC 628, 2016).
120 The maximum length of a fixed-term sanction was reduced in 2019 from three years to 26 weeks.

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