A blunt instrument of policy

Ask a group in any pub if they’ve heard of Atos and among the references to musketeers or one of Jupiter’s moons, someone just might recognise the name of an early government privatisation “success”.

Atos is the French-owned firm at the forefront of the ConDem government's reform of the disability benefits system. It is also becoming the focus of growing anger over testing and coarse assessment methods.

Writing in the Guardian, Amelia Gentleman, points out that people who have had no contact with the benefits system are unlikely to have heard of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Yet anyone with disabilities or serious ill-health will probably already have a detailed knowledge of the test's workings and its many alleged disturbing idiosyncrasies.

Over the next three years, one and a half million people will have to undergo an automated assessment in which a complex computer program will help a team of "disability analysts" to rule on who is sufficiently fit for work. The concern among health practioners and disability pressure groups is the fitness of a computer-led assessment and that it consigns people into categories on a permanent basis.

The protestor waving a banner from his wheelchair outside the Atos offices put the issue into perspective by saying, “the system makes no allowances for deterioration or development of therapy to cope with a disability. The effect of this blunt & unsophisticated tool is that it makes you instantly worthless or work-shy.”

Claimants are asked if they watch EastEnders or Coronation Street on the basis that a positive response means they can sit and concentrate for 30 minutes whilst a woman with mental health problems had been found ineligible for the benefit because she "did not appear to be trembling . . . sweating . . . or make rocking movements".

Employment minister Chris Grayling stated that the new process is not primarily motivated by a desire to save money. Needless to say, few believe him or his cabinet colleagues. What remains to be seen is whether the rest of the coalition goes along with this ill-considered and potentially disastrous policy shift.