Labour MP Slams ‘Unacceptable’ Capita Disability Benefit Assessments

Labour MP, Peter Hain, has called on disability benefit assessment firm Capita and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to "urgently reform" its "punitive" assessment process, which is "causing no end of misery" to sick and disabled claimants, before it descends into similar "problems experienced with ATOS and the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) assessments".

Capita was selected by the DWP last April from a selection of private contractors to deliver disability benefit assessments in Wales for the new disabled persons benefit, Personal Independence Payment, which is replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

Mr Hain claims that his sick and disabled constituents are having to wait several months for their assessment to be completed by Capita, as they are transferred from DLA to PIP. In a letter to Capita Peter Hain MP writes:

"I am deeply concerned by the growing trend that is emerging around the Capita assessments for the Personal Independence Payment application and am anxious that this is dealt with swiftly and decisively before a situation similar to the protracted problems experienced with ATOS and the Employment and Support Allowance assessments develops.

"Constituents have approached me, all with the same problem, regarding the length of time it is taking for Capita to process their application. Typically constituents placed their application in June or July, had the face to face assessment in August or September and are still waiting for the report to be sent from Capita to the Department of Work and Pensions for a decision to be made. This simply is an unacceptable amount of time for people to wait for their application to be processed.

"Sadly the experience that I am hearing for people who have been through the process is that from the face to face assessment to the point of Capita sending the report to the DWP the system it is prolonged and inexplicably lengthy.

"It cannot go on that people are waiting months for their assessment to be processed, causingno end of misery for the individual and their family. I ask that you review your system and ensure that applications are dealt with promptly and efficiently and in doing so the turn around on applications is drastically reduced from its current length."

Mr Hain has also written to the Work and Pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith, saying:

"I urge you to get on top of this issue now and resolve the problems with Capita and the length of time it is taking to process the assessments before it descends into a similar shambles to that of ATOS and people with disabilities are left fending for themselves. I have asked that Capita review its systems and reduce the length of time it takes them to process applications and I ask you to take actively work to ensure Capita fulfills its obligations to effectively process those applications is a timely manner as the approved assessment provider."