Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what performance targets his Department has set for Atos's contract under the work capability assessment; and whether such targets have been met.

The Performance of Atos is measured across a range of service level agreements setting out the Department's expectation for service delivery.

The Department has given Atos Healthcare a clearance target that we expect them to achieve by the end of the contract. We are closely monitoring their performance and currently Atos Healthcare are consistently achieving our monthly clearance expectations.

We are working closely with Atos Healthcare to continually improve their performance and have put in place changes to better manage the flow of work between the Department, all designed to reduce waiting times for claimants. These measures are taking effect and the backlog of cases has continued to fall over the past few months.