Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit recipients were assessed as having Limited Capability for (a) Work and (b) Work and Work-related Activity in each month since May 2016; and how many such recipients had an outstanding Work Capability Assessment referral other than Limited Capability for Work and Work and Work-related Activity in each of those months.

The table below shows the latest Universal Credit (UC) Work Capability Assessment (WCA) decisions recorded between April 2019 and September 2022 by the month the decision was recorded on the UC system. Prior to April 2019, some UC claims were recorded on an interim operational system called UC Live Service (UCLS). Figures for UCLS Health claimants are not currently collated and to develop that information would incur disproportionate cost.

Please note:

(i) Where a claimant has more than one decision relating to a Work Capability Assessment recorded (for example, if a Mandatory Reconsideration or Appeal resulted in a change of decision) then only the latest decision will be included;

(ii) In order to allow sufficient time for retrospection and for the analytical datasets to be created, volumes for September 2022 is the latest information we have available for WCA decisions;

(iii) All volumes have been rounded to the nearest 10;

(iv) These figures are produced using internal MI, are not quality assured to Official Statistics standards, and may be subject to revision.

The table below outlines the outstanding UC WCA cases, as recorded at each month end, from May 2016. Total outstanding WCA cases includes all UC referrals in the process at that point in time. This can include claimants who have been asked to return a Capability for Work questionnaire and have still to do so, those yet to be referred to a health assessment provider and those who already have an assessment scheduled. UC started to replace income-related Employment and Support Allowance for new claims from January 2016, resulting in an increase in outstanding UC WCAs over the subsequent years. In addition, most WCAs were paused for several months starting in March 2020 as a result of the COVID pandemic, leading to a further increase in outstanding WCAs, which started to fall from late 2020.

Please note:

(i) The total outstanding relates to the number of outstanding referrals as at a point in time, taken on the last day of each month;

(ii) All volumes have been rounded to the nearest 10;

(iii) All of the above data is derived from contractual management information produced by the WCA assessment provider;

(iv) The above data is derived from unpublished management information which is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.