DWP released data on outcomes covering the first quarter of that year: then, for the small number of Incapacity Benefit recipients undergoing a WCA for the first time, the percentage being placed in the Support Group after their assessment was 87%, while 39% of new claimants qualified for the Support Group immediately after their WCA. Expert opinion When Atos gave its reasons for seeking to exit the contract to carry out the assessment, the firm announced that it had come to the conclusion that "in its current form, the WCA is not working for claimants, for DWP or for Atos Healthcare". Conversely, Dr Paul Litchfield, who advised the DWP on the performance of the WCA in 2013 and 2014, described the test he had helped to design as "by no means perfect" but nevertheless adequate. However, in 2014 he cautioned that: "We have taken the WCA about as far as it can sensibly go in terms of modification and adjustment". Professor Dame Carol Black advised the government on back-to-work policy between 2006 and 2016. She said of the WCA: "I don't think anyone thinks it has been a success", describing it as "badly placed" and too far from when the first sick note or fit-note is penned. United Nations report In November 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published its report on the situation facing disabled people in the United Kingdom. Of the WCA, it said: The DWP responded by saying that promoting and enabling work for persons with disabilities was a high priority and it described the various ways it was trying to bring this about. The department emphasised its hopes for the future, especially the aspirations outlined in its recent Green Paper. Politicians' assessments In 2015, Iain Duncan Smith complained that the system gave doctors a "binary choice", not an opportunity to deliver a more nuanced opinion on claimants' fitness for work. In April 2016, the new Welfare Secretary, Stephen Crabb, said that the WCA had "never worked as intended. The WCA was a mess, it didn't recognise mental health issues and other types of disability". Later the same year, the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Debbie Abrahams, said the test her party had described as "tough but fair" in 2010 had been "discredited". In late October 2016, when appearing on Question Time, the president of the Liberal Democrats,