Increased scrutiny of ESA decisions needed

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Better communication throughout the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) system and an audit of decision makers' rulings have been recommended by an independent review.

It concluded that the ESA claims system has improved since the last series of changes but ‘there is still further to go'. The report has been welcomed by disability charities but they also raised concerns that progress on making the previous alterations had been too slow. In his second annual review of the ESA claims process, Professor Malcolm Harrington made four key recommendations to improve the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and claimant experience. They were: • Introducing checks on benefit decisions to ensure fairness and consistency, • Working with disability groups to h...

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