I do understand that different assessors may come to different conclusions about the fitness to work of someone they are assessing, CD.
And there will very obviously be some cases, which by the nature of the incapacity are going to be especially contentious, but they would be the minority of cases.
As it currently stands, there are some particular issues about the way the system is organised which are problematic.
1. Outsourced assessments for State benefits to a private company which is not therefore directly accountable via FoI requests. This means governments can play bureaucratic ping pong when it comes to awkward requests.
2. Conflicts of Interest. ATOS are also one of the largest companies in the area of getting disability claimants back to work. They are also the ones contracted to assess the disablity levels of those claimants. There is a clear conflict of interest and a clear pecuniary advantage to ATOS in having as many claimants declared fit to work as possible. Anecdotal evidence, together with media investigations ( Dispatches, Britain on the Sick, C4) suggest ATOS is incentivised to find people fit for work, leaving them open to the claim that they are massaging the assessment findings for their own financial benefit. Professor Harrington, an architect of the assessment scheme has raised concerns about how objective the assessments are.
3. Some opacity with respect to the qualifications of the ATOS assessors.They do not, for example, need postgrad qualifications in disability assessments nor the Diploma in Disability Assessment Medicine in order to be an assessor. The data entry system, LIMA, also relies very heavily on standardised phrases when submitting an assessment. Potentially useful to standardise responses, but subject to the charge of bias in the wording.
4. The immediate suspension of benefits payments upon appeal against an assessment, until that appeal is heard. No right to an immediate or swift appeal, so in some cases, people can be waiting months, in some cases a year or more, before their cases are heard. I think this is iniquitous.
These are the areas where there needs to be change. I am not disputing the need for such assessments, but I do think the current system is unfair- grossly so when it comes to suspension of benefits until your appeal is heard -and opaque, and, with ATOS both making the assesssments AND being selected as one of the partner "disabled back to work programmes", clearly open to accusations of conflicts of interest and financial gain.