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The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is the test designed and used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the United Kingdom to determine whether disabled welfare claimants or those suffering from long-term illnesses are entitled to the main out-of-work sickness benefit: Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The introduction of the WCA as the gatekeeper to ESA was a crucial part of the out-of-work benefit reforms of 2008 that the next government continued and developed. The WCA aims to sort sickness benefit claimants into three groups: fit for work; unfit for work but fit for pre-employment training; or fit for neither work nor training. The DWP views this as the first step in a process that helps some disabled people "off benefits and into work" but the testing procedure has proved highly controversial, with concerns loudly expressed about inaccurate decision-making and the difficulties and delays faced by claimants when they launch an appeal. Atos Healthcare, part of the UK branch of the Paris-based multinational Atos, conducted the core assessment on behalf of the DWP from October 2008 until 1 March 2015, on which date the American firm Maximus took over. Labour and the two former coalition parties all support the principle of ESA - to encourage work and thereby reduce welfare spending - but few observers now see the deployment of the WCA as a success, in economic terms or otherwise. Seven years since it was introduced it is still not clear that the test will ever work as intended, and there is persistent criticism of the leadership skills and integrity shown by government ministers and officials during the long attempt to launch what was once a flagship welfare reform.〔http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1213627es.pdf〕 ==Evolution of the 'fitness for work' test == Before 1995, entitlement to the payment known as Invalidity Benefit was decided by an Adjudication Officer, based in large part on the opinion of claimants' own doctors. In 1995, Invalidity Benefit became Incapacity Benefit (IB) and the now defunct Department of Social Security began commissioning its own medical assessments using its new 'All Work Test'. The change came about partly as a result of the view that a mainly clinical opinion from an individual's doctor might not be an accurate reflection of the barriers to work faced by the claimant (it has also been noted that some symptoms that can have an impact on the ability to work, such as pain and fatigue, can be difficult to gauge using the traditional medical model). From this point on, the testing process looked at the ability of the claimant to do a range of jobs, not just their previous trade. In 2000, the All Work Test was replaced by the Personal Capability Assessment. Mansel Aylward was at that time Chief Medical Adviser, Medical Director and Chief Scientist of the UK Department for Work and Pensions and was influential in the development of the new process. In 2007 the New Labour government passed the Welfare Reform Act〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/5/contents )〕 which - for fresh claims, initially - would, the following year, introduce Employment and Support Allowance as the main out-of-work sickness benefit, with the new Work Capability Assessment acting as its gatekeeper. The aims were: to accentuate the positive by "looking at what you ''can'' do, not what you can't do"; to make the test for out-of-work sickness benefits more stringent; and to take into account new disability legislation, changes in the workplace and developments in occupational health. To comply with the terms of the 2007 Act the DWP appointed Professor Malcolm Harrington,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Prof Malcolm Harrington, CBE Authorised Biography - Debrett's People of Today )〕 an academic with a background in occupational health, to review the WCA system in 2010. In November of that year he published an initial report that included 25 recommendations.〔https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/70071/wca-review-2010.pdf〕〔https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/70077/wca-review-2010-response.pdf〕 The second year of his review was to include refining the criteria relating to people with mental health problems and conditions that can fluctuate in severity from day to day〔https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/70102/wca-review-2011.pdf〕〔https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/70109/wca-review-2011-response.pdf〕 (in 2012, DWP ministers decided to replace Professor Harrington; as his successor they appointed Dr Paul Litchfield, a senior figure in the Royal College of Physicians' Faculty of Occupational Medicine).〔http://www.fom.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/annrep031.pdf〕 In early 2011, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government brought forward the planned expansion of the programme to assess once again the 2.5 million people whom the DWP had previously judged, before the introduction of ESA and the WCA, to be entitled to Incapacity Benefit. At the same time the DWP revised the framework of the test, with the result that the eligibility criteria became even more stringent: most notably, the 03/11 version awarded no points when a claimant who had difficulty walking could overcome the disability by using a wheelchair, if reasonably practicable. Official projections then envisaged many hundreds of thousands of claimants of Incapacity Benefit moving onto (Jobseekers Allowance ) or into a training programme and then into work. As a result, a saving of £3billion annually in the IB/ESA budget was anticipated by the end of the parliament.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Welfare savings and incapacity benefits )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Work Capability Assessment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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