Guidance

Uses and Users of the Employment and Support Allowance: outcomes of Work Capability Assessment Statistical Bulletin

Updated 14 September 2023

Introduction

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publish an Employment and Support Allowance: outcomes of Work Capability Assessment (ESA-WCA) Statistical Bulletin every quarter. It is used to present information on both new claims and claims undergoing reassessment of incapacity benefits for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in Great Britain. It provides statistics on the outcome of completed assessments, claims still in progress and claims closed before the assessment process is complete.

The ESA-WCA Statistical Bulletin is published quarterly, containing data merged together from the following data sources:

• DWP’s benefit administration datasets covering new claims (starting from 27 October 2008)

• Atos Healthcare’s face to face assessment, ESA85, data and limited capability for work questionnaire, ESA50, data – this will cover those cases where the assessment phase is completed.

• HMCTS’s appeals caseload data – note that this only includes information on completed appeals and not those still in progress. The data does not contain the reason why the appeal was lodged, and this has to be inferred using information on the DWP decision maker decision.

Alongside the Statistical Bulletin, there are a number of tables which enable the user to delve into the detail. These are provided to the user via the latest official statistics bulletin.

Known uses of the ESA-WCA statistical bulletin

The bulletin (and underlying datasets) is used by DWP for:

• providing the evidence base for assessing the potential effect of policy options

• monitoring current DWP policy and evaluating recent changes

• monitoring the effect on the benefit system of the economic cycle

• answering Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

• forecasting benefit expenditure (in conjunction with expenditure statistics)

Outside DWP, the internet based publication mechanism for the Summary means that we cannot understand all the varied uses of these numbers. However, we do know that the Bulletin and underlying datasets are used for:

• providing general information on the benefit system

• measuring government targets relating to DWP

• Academic research

• Policy development and evaluation by local authorities and other welfare to work and pensions stakeholders and providers

Analysis of users

We have not conducted an analysis of users of these statistics. Information about users is only available via and we are awaiting web analysis to be made available to do this.

However, the following areas within DWP utilise the information

• Health and Wellbeing Directorate

• DWP Operations

• Strategy Group

• Working Age Benefits Division

• Universal Credit Division

• Press Office

And there is a lot of public interest in the data to help support individuals’ in their appeal process via Freedom of Information requests (FOI’s) and also through Parliamentary Questions.

Valid Uses of the ESA-WCA Statistical Bulletin

The Bulletin can be used for:

• the outcomes of completed Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessments (ESA WCA)

• claims still in progress

• claims closed before the WCA process is complete

• the data is predominately used for ESA policy analysis

The publication covers both new claims and claims undergoing reassessment of incapacity benefits for ESA in Great Britain and is produced quarterly. However, the numbers should not be used for:

• statistics on ESA claimants. Official statistics can be found for ESA claimants with relevant breakdowns from the Quarterly Statistical Summary

• statistics on Appeals other than those directly related to ESA-WCA. Appeals information is available from Ministry of Justice Tribunal Services publications

Areas of unmet need

Customers (both within DWP and externally) sometimes request the following:

• more timely release of statistics. National statistics are released at least 10 months in arrears because of time needed to:

a) enable processing of data sourced from inside the department and outside it from HMCTS and Atos Healthcare

b) allow time for all decisions to be made and recorded – the assessment phase is usually 13 weeks, but in some cases it will take longer for a decision to be reached

c) align with the Ministry of Justice quarterly publication of Tribunal Statistics release schedule

• more detail and more flexible online analysis. A sufficient amount of detail about claimants’ ESA-WCA process and appeal is available in order to support the current users’ requirements. We’d need legal reason to request transfer of additional data from HMRCT and ATOS if it is outside the scope of the current requirement

How to comment and get involved

DWP would like to hear your views on our statistical publications. If you use any of our statistics publications, we would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at stats-consultation@dwp.gov.uk.

or complete the ongoing questionnaire.

In addition to the above, DWP use a number of routes to seek user views. For example:

• national statistics consultations are run for large proposed changes. For example, in 2013 DWP opened a consultation on “People and households claiming Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and other benefits: Plans for 2013-2017”.

The outcome of this consultation will shape the content and format of the Statistical Summary through to 2017 and beyond. Please read the full consultation.

This consultation has now closed and results will be published in due course, for example:

• DWP publish experimental statistics for new series, whilst seeking user views to inform a full national statistics release

• hold 6 monthly meetings with a selection of users

• new statistics are developed in conjunction with groups of stakeholders to help understand and quality assure output

• monitor the usage of the DWP website and Tabulation Tool

• monitor ad hoc analysis requests

• post updates about DWP Benefit Statistics on Statsusernet. If you would like to receive updates join the Welfare and Benefits community.

For all other enquiries please check contact details.