Recommendation 36

We acknowledge that most disabled people and people with health conditions receive the core elements of their claim on time. However, we find it troubling that, because of the time taken to complete the Work Capability Assessment process, people must wait much longer than five weeks to receive their full entitlement. Even beyond this, disabled people experience further delays, waiting on average four months for a WCA decision. Given that disabled or ill claimants face additional costs and challenges during the wait for their first payment, it is vital that people receive their full entitlement as quickly as possible. We have recommended elsewhere in this report that DWP prioritise the changes that are needed to the UC system to allow it to collect data about claimants’ characteristics, including impairment or health condition, in a systematic way. It needs that data to understand fully disabled people’s experience of making a claim for Universal Credit. DWP should investigate how it can speed up the WCA process. Four months, on average, is too long for a person to wait for their full award. In addition, the Department should continue to monitor and collect data on how long the WCA process is taking, and it should fast track any groups for whom data suggests the WCA takes the longest. Notwithstanding 84 Universal Credit: the wait for a first payment delays to the process, 13 weeks is still a long time. Disabled people and people with health conditions should not have to wait this long to receive the disability element of their award. DWP should commit to reducing the time taken to complete the WCA process.