Figures reveal vast majority win appeal leading to calls for flawed scheme to be scrapped
Two thirds of disabled Scots have been wrongly judged fit for work under UK government rules.
Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that the majority of work capability assessments are being overturned on appeal.
The statistics comes from a breakdown of Employment Support Allowance (ESA) assessments originally carried out in June last year.
Labour is now planning amendments to the Scottish Government’s social security bill to scrap the system it says isn’t working.
Claimants are routinely required to undertake both written and physical assessments as part of their claim for ESA.
However campaigners argue the tests are flawed and that assessors are too eager to judge disabled people fit to work.
Social security spokesman Mark Griffin said: “These figures show that work capability assessments just aren’t working.
“That’s what happens when our social security system chases profits before the wellbeing of people.
“It’s time to move beyond the warm words on social security and deliver a better system.”
But a DWP spokesman said: “In the vast majority of successful appeals, decisions are overturned because the claimant provides new evidence.”
It comes on top of new research, conducted by academics at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt and Napier universities, that found the Work Capability Assessment experience “for many, caused a deterioration in people’s mental health which individuals did not recover from”.
It also established, through dozens of in-depth interviews of people who had been through the tests, that “in the worst cases, the WCA experience led to thoughts of suicide”. Mental health charities said the interviews’ contents also “reflect what we hear from people every day”.
Key causes of extreme stress were a claimant’s fear of losing their income, the prolonged nature of tests, a lack of specialist mental health training amongst assessors, and the fact the test was clearly geared towards people with physical disabilities.
It’s time to move beyond the warm words on social security and deliver a better system - Mark Griffin
Professor Abigail Marks, lead author of the report, said: “A lot of the people we spoke to were in a position where they are preparing to go back to work before their assessment – they were doing training courses, community initiatives, or volunteering,” she said.
“They said that after the assessment, because the assessment had caused them so much stress, they were unable to go back and take part in those activities because their mental health had had such a deterioration.
“Talking to the advocacy workers, as well, they said it was almost universal that after people had gone through an assessment there was a significant decrease in their mental health.”
