November 2023 Autumn Statement reforms the Work Capability Assessment

The Work Capability Assessment was reformed in the November 2023 Autumn Statement, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility's summary of welfare spending on universal credit¹. The change removed the "mobilising" descriptor and amended the "substantial risk" and "getting about" descriptors¹. The OBR lists the reform among key policy changes to universal credit since 2010, alongside measures such as limiting the child element to two children and removing the family element for new claims in the July 2015 Budget, and reducing the taper rate to 63 per cent in Autumn Statement 2016¹.

The assessment determines entitlement to the health element of universal credit and to employment and support allowance. The OBR's page does not set out the wording of the amended descriptors, the number of claimants affected, or a saving attributed to the measure; those details have not been reported in the material published there¹.

The same OBR page sets out the wider spending context. Universal credit and its legacy benefit predecessors were expected to account for 27 per cent of total welfare spending in 2023-24, slightly below their 28 per cent share in 2022-23¹. Universal credit alone was expected to rise from 58 per cent of total universal credit and legacy spending in 2022-23 to 63 per cent in 2023-24, and to reach 86 per cent in 2028-29¹. Combined universal credit and legacy spending was forecast at £80.9 billion in 2023-24, up from £73.4 billion in 2022-23 and slightly above the cash-terms high of £80.4 billion in 2020-21¹. Spending on universal credit alone was expected to be £51.2 billion in 2023-24, up from £42.6 billion in 2022-23, and forecast to reach £88.1 billion in 2028-29¹.

Why it matters for households

The descriptors sit inside the Work Capability Assessment, the test used to decide whether a claimant is treated as having limited capability for work or limited capability for work-related activity. Removing one descriptor and amending two others changes how some claimants' functional limitations are matched against the assessment criteria, which in turn can affect the amount of universal credit paid and the conditions attached to a claim. The OBR records the reform as a November 2023 Autumn Statement measure¹; it does not state in that page when each amended descriptor takes effect for new or existing claims, and no commencement date for the individual changes appears there¹.

The spending figures give the scale of the system the assessment sits within. Universal credit and its predecessors were forecast to cost £80.9 billion in 2023-24, or around 3.0 per cent of GDP, just above the 2.9 per cent recorded in 1985-86¹. The OBR notes that entitlement is tapered at a single rate of 55 per cent on net income, with tapering starting either above a monthly work allowance or from the first pound of income depending on the case¹.

What happens next

The OBR states that the universal credit rollout, excluding that for some income-based employment and support allowance claimants, is expected to be completed by September 2025, eight years later than originally planned¹. It also records a delay to the managed move of income-based employment and support allowance claimants to universal credit until April 2028¹. The OBR page was last updated on 19 January 2024¹.