Welfare Reform Bill

The current PCA was introduced in 1995, and the comments made about it being stringent could apply to the original or the current assessment. We are now moving someway from that assessment. We are looking at an assessment that takes into account significant changes in employment experienced by people with disabilities and long-term conditions, as well as a change in the distribution between mental health problems and physical disabilities in people claiming incapacity benefit. We need to recognise that things have moved on quite significantly. There has been a limited evaluation of the PCA, which has looked at the current and revised PCAs. We are in the early stages of evaluating the effects of the developments, and it would be unfair to suggest that the revised PCA is such a stringent test.