Scrap ESA assessment stage - Absence Review

Currently the ESA has an initial assessment stage, where claimants are paid while waiting for a WCA although some bypass this stage if they have sufficient medical evidence not to need a face-to-face WCA. Dame Carol Black and David Frost, the reports authors, said: "It takes an average of 17 weeks for people claiming ESA to be assessed and then over 60 per cent are actually found fit for work (accounting for those who successfully appeal against being found fit, the proportion found fit is still over 50 per cent). "This builds an unacceptable delay into the journey to get people back ...