What is the exact purpose of face-to-face WCA (UC)

Dimang
Dimang Online Community Member Posts: 16 Listener
in Benefits and income
Hi everyone, I was wondering if someone could explain the purpose of face-to-face Work Capability Assessments (in context of Universal Credit).

While it is common sense to me that it cannot be decided what group you should be placed in based only on your answers in UC50 form, I don't fully understand the purpose of a face-to-face assessment. I will explain what I mean.

I filled in the UC50 form and returned it several weeks ago. When filling it in, I was completely honest and I didn't even know how the system works (points and all that stuff).

Next week I have a face-to-face assessment and today I decided to find out a bit more on the internet, just to know what to expect.

 After reading up about how it works, I have realized that based on the UC50 form I should be in LCWRA group. I will be honest, it is my answer for Activity 17 (about aggression towards others) that "scored" 15 points. I am not proud of it by the way, but I was honest, and as I said, when I was filling in the form, I had no expectations. I just stated facts and I did not know that just 1 thing like this means you should be in LCWRA group. 

Anyway, my question is, if deciding which group you should be in is simply based on the points system, what is the point of the face-to-face assessment then? To make sure I didn't lie? 

I would appreciate if someone could explain this.

Comments

  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,463 Championing
    It’s to gather more evidence to support your claim because you didn’t give enough of information in the form or you didn’t send enough of extra evidence to support your claim. 

    For LCWRA it’s not about scoring points. It’s about satisfying at least one of the descriptors, which you can see here https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/universal-credit-uc/uc-faq/limited-capability-for-work-related-activity

    The majority of people have assessments, paper based assessments are rare. 
  • Dimang
    Dimang Online Community Member Posts: 16 Listener
    poppy123456 said:
    It’s to gather more evidence to support your claim because you didn’t give enough of information in the form or you didn’t send enough of extra evidence to support your claim. 

    For LCWRA it’s not about scoring points. It’s about satisfying at least one of the descriptors, which you can see here https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/universal-credit-uc/uc-faq/limited-capability-for-work-related-activity

    The majority of people have assessments, paper based assessments are rare. 
    Thanks for your reply. Really appreciated. I know it would be crazy for them to make such decisions just based on the form. And if they did, surely a lot of people who don't have a real disability of any sort would try to get some easy money... 
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,463 Championing
    Paper based assessments are possible, I’ve had a couple of them myself but they are rare. It really depends on what information you wrote in the form. It’s fine to give the information but is it relevant. 

    I wouldn’t call any assessment easy money.

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