A DWP minister confirmed that the plans are on hold while a review into PIP takes place
The Department for Work and Pensions has issued an update on its plans to abolish the Work Capability Assessment for Universal Credit and Employment Support Allowance .
The assessment is currently used to determine whether a benefit claimant is able to work and what they are entitled to. The previous Conservative government had announced major changes to the way the assessments work, however the currentsaid scrapping the WCA will "end the state categorising people into binary groups and labelling them as either ‘can or can’t work’".
Benefit claimants will instead be assessed via the assessment for Personal Independence Payments .
"Instead, any extra financial support for health conditions in UC will be assessed via a single assessment – the PIP assessment – and be based on the impact of disability on daily living, not on capacity to work. "Due to its link with the Personal Independence Payment assessment, Work Capability Assessment abolition will not take place until after the Timms Review into PIP has reported.
We are currently considering how the future system will operate and will provide further information in due course.
" He added that under the current system, some disabled people will meet the Severe Conditions Criteria , which are used to identify "those with the most severe, lifelong health conditions or disabilities, who are unlikely to improve, are not expected to ever be able to work, and for whom reassessments are unlikely to provide further new information". He said claimants who meet those criteria do not need to have a reassessment unless their condition changes or improves.
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