Day 27 · Proposal 26 · Part XI · Policy 29
26
Reformed Capability Assessments
Assessing what people can do — safely, reliably and sustainably.
Current policy — Manifesto 1.1
Proposal 26 would reform work-capability assessments so they identify what a person can safely, reliably and sustainably do—not merely record a diagnosis or catalogue limitations. Decisions would consider realistic hours, transferable skills, reasonable adjustments, fluctuating conditions and genuine suitable work, while retaining strong health safeguards and keeping PIP separate from employability.
Published Manifesto 1.1 policy. The sections below set out the proposal as published. Questions and challenges are open questions, not settled answers.
1. The core idea
Too often, sickness and disability assessments are experienced as a catalogue of limitations. A decision that someone has limited capability can then become a long-term label, even where their health, skills or circumstances might allow some suitable work with the right support.
Proposal 26 would develop a capability-led framework. It would examine functional capacity, adaptability, transferable skills, realistic hours, reasonable workplace adjustments and the types of work a person might safely and reliably undertake. A diagnosis alone would not determine employment status.
The aim is to help more people move towards suitable work, reduce avoidable long-term economic inactivity and support higher employment, growth, productivity and tax revenue. Those outcomes are aims to be tested, not guaranteed savings. Nobody should lose protection merely because an assessment identifies a theoretical ability that does not translate into a real, sustainable job.
2. Guiding principle
Guiding principle
Assess capability, support possibility, protect health.
3. Two assessments — two different purposes
- Work capability and LCWRA: This assessment concerns capability for work and work-related activity. Reform should produce a practical capability profile, while retaining clear protection where work or preparation would create a substantial health risk.
- Personal Independence Payment: PIP helps with the extra impact of difficulties in daily living and mobility. It can be paid while a person works. It should not be converted into an employability test or removed solely because someone can do a job.
Important distinction
Being able to work does not mean disability has disappeared, and being unable to do one kind of work does not mean a person has nothing to contribute.
4. A practical capability profile
- Functional capability: What activities can be carried out safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and within a reasonable time?
- Health risk: Could work or preparation worsen the condition, create a substantial risk of harm or disrupt essential treatment?
- Adaptability: Could different methods, equipment, training or technology make a task realistic?
- Reasonable adjustments: What changes to duties, hours, location, communication or the working environment are required?
- Different forms of work: Which job families or tasks fit the person’s capacity, and which are clearly unsuitable?
- Realistic hours: What pattern is sustainable, including phased, part-time, flexible, remote or hybrid work?
- Transferable skills: Which experience, qualifications and personal strengths could support a new role?
- Fluctuation and recovery: How do good days, bad days, relapses, fatigue, treatment and recovery affect dependable participation?
5. What the decision should lead to
- Protected from requirements: Where work or preparation is not safe or realistic, support continues without inappropriate conditionality.
- Preparation with protection: Where future work may be possible, offer voluntary or carefully tailored treatment-compatible preparation and skills support.
- Suitable-work pathway: Where work is realistically possible, link the profile to named support, training, adjustments and genuine vacancies.
- Review when circumstances change: Use proportionate review periods based on prognosis and evidence, avoiding repeated assessment where improvement is not expected.
6. The practical test
The practical test
A capability on paper must connect to real work that is available, suitable and sustainable.
7. Safeguards
A more positive assessment must not become a softer-sounding route to removing support. Decisions should be evidence-led, independently challengeable and connected to the protections in Policies 28 and 30.
- No diagnosis-only decision: Consider the individual impact of all physical, sensory, mental, intellectual and cognitive conditions.
- Reliability standard: An activity counts only where it can be performed safely, repeatedly, to an acceptable standard and within a reasonable time.
- Fluctuating conditions: Assess capacity across time, including bad days, episodic illness, fatigue, pain and the after-effects of activity.
- Substantial-risk protection: Do not impose work or preparation where it could cause deterioration, relapse, self-harm or other serious harm.
- Independent evidence: Accept relevant evidence from clinicians, occupational therapists, support workers, carers and the claimant.
- Right to challenge: Provide clear reasons, access to the evidence used, advocacy and a timely independent reconsideration or appeal.
- No imaginary jobs: Do not declare capability solely by naming a theoretical task that is unavailable or incompatible with the person’s needs.
- PIP remains separate: Daily-living and mobility support must not be withdrawn simply because a person works or has some work capability.
8. The unresolved reassessment question
Manifesto 1.0 proposed that every person receiving PIP and LCWRA support would ultimately be reassessed under a new framework. That universal-reassessment commitment was not included in the supplied Manifesto 1.1 master and is not silently reinstated here.
The better approach should be decided through scrutiny: targeted transition, natural reassessment points and evidence-based exemptions may be fairer and less costly than a compulsory reassessment of every existing claimant.
Warning
No reform should create a mass reassessment exercise without evidence that it is necessary, workable, humane and better than the system it replaces.
9. Questions for scrutiny
This proposal should be co-designed and tested with disabled people, benefit claimants, clinicians, occupational-health specialists, employers, welfare advisers, tribunals and employment-support organisations.
- 01How can an assessment focus on strengths without minimising pain, fatigue, distress, risk or the extra costs of disability?
- 02Which measures best identify safe, reliable and sustainable work capacity rather than one-off task performance?
- 03How should assessors connect a capability profile to real occupations, vacancies, hours and workplace adjustments?
- 04Which conditions, prognoses or circumstances should lead to a long award, light-touch review or no routine reassessment?
- 05Should existing claimants move to the new framework only at natural review points, through targeted transition or through universal reassessment?
- 06How should PIP accuracy be improved while preserving its purpose and its availability to people in work?
- 07Who should conduct assessments, what qualifications should they hold and how should independence be protected?
- 08What evidence should automatically trigger substantial-risk protection or exemption from work-related requirements?
- 09How should employers be required to respond when an assessment identifies adjustments or restricted hours?
- 10Which results should be published: decision accuracy, appeals, health outcomes, employment, earnings, retention, claimant experience and administrative cost?
- 11What pilot design would show whether the reform genuinely improves lives and the public finances before wider rollout?
10. Core commitment
Core commitment
Replace a deficit-only system with a fair capability profile—linked to real support, real jobs and strong health protections.
11. Proposed direction
People should not be written off when suitable work may be possible. Equally, identifying a limited capability must never be confused with proving that a person can sustain any job, at any hours, without support.
Reform should proceed through co-design, pilots, independent evaluation and published evidence before national implementation.
Source basis: Manifesto 1.1, Part XI, Policy 29 / Major Promise 26 — Assess Capability, Not Merely Diagnosis. Current-system distinction checked against GOV.UK guidance on health conditions and Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment eligibility and the PIP assessment criteria. Read alongside Policy 28 on Work and Independence and Policy 30 on hardship protection. This citizen-led proposal is published for scrutiny; assessment criteria, transition arrangements, costs, savings and timetable are not settled.
Read. Question. Challenge. Improve.
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