ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals: March 2021
Outcomes of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessments, including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals information.
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Documents
Details
The latest release of these statistics can be found in the collection of ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments statistics.
This is a summary of the National Statistics on the outcomes of completed Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessments (WCA). The publication covers information on both initial and repeat ESA assessments in Great Britain.
Similar to the last publication, this release does not include any information sourced from appeals data and only consists of a reduced set of data tables. This is due to delays with the receipt of the HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) data which did not allow enough time for the inclusion of this data in the release. For future publications we will be able to include a complete back-series covering any missing tables. This release therefore includes:
- WCA outcomes of initial and repeat WCAs to end of September 2020
- End to end initial ESA claim clearance times to end of September 2020
- Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) information to end of January 2021:
- Number of MR registrations
- Number of MR decisions
- MR outcomes by type of decision
- Median MR clearance time
Only the information for MRs and end-to-end clearance times for initial claims is published on Stat-Xplore, while the remaining information is published as data tables. Once the issues with the appeals data is resolved, future publications will include a complete backseries covering any missing tables.
This release does not include:
- Outcomes of assessments adjusted for appeal
- Reasons for assignment into Support Group (SG), Work Related Activity Group (WRAG)
- Appeal outcomes for Fit for Work (FfW) decisions
- Numbers from the experimental data which follows customers through the ESA journey, so numbers who complete a WCA, then go through to raise an MR and then go on to appeal
- Incapacity Benefit (IB) reassessment numbers and outcomes adjusted by appeal outcome
- Outcome of assessment by International Classifications of Diseases (ICD) group: Functional impairment reasons for WRAG outcomes
Universal Credit (UC) was rolled out to every Jobcentre across Great Britain by December 2018 and has now replaced income-related ESA for most new claimants. This has greatly changed the volume and composition of new claims to ESA.
Note: Information is only available for claims that began at least 6 months following the assessment date, or 9 months following the date of claim. This is because of the time required for the customer journey to end and for the information recorded to be as complete as possible.
More information
Read background information on these statistics in ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessment policies and statements.
Find more about DWP statistics and contact details on the Statistics at DWP page.
Find details of future DWP statistics releases in the statistics release calendar.