A three-year contract to carry out fitness to work tests on long-term incapacity benefit claimants should be awarded at the end of August.
Social Care Minister Chris Robertshaw told a social affairs policy review committee that a pilot scheme using UK consultancy Atos had been a success.
The committee heard there have been six expressions of interest in taking on the role when that pilot ends.
Tender documents are to go out to all six and it is expected that the contract will be awarded at the end of next month.
The expressions of interest have come from both on and off-island.
Ross Stephens, acting director of social security and finance, said Atos ‘may or may not be’ among the six. He said the contract would be awarded first and foremost on quality of service and then in terms of which bidder offered best value for money.
‘The process will be open and transparent,’ he insisted.
There has been widespread criticism in the UK about the tick-box assessments carried out by Atos Healthcare which has a £100 million a year contract with the Department of Work and Pensions.
Last week, the DWP announced it will be contracting new providers to carry out work capability checks alongside Atos, after a recent review found the assessments to be ‘of unacceptably poor quality’.
Social Care bosses in the island say personal capability assessments are likely to be a permanent element of the incapacity benefit claim process and that they have received ‘considerable positive feedback’ from claimants.
Giving evidence to the social affairs committee, Mr Robertshaw revealed that following the Atos pilot, a third of long-term incapacity claimants had gone back to work, a third were found to be on the right benefits and the final third were found to need further state assistance.
Committee chairman Brenda Cannell MHK said that in the UK £60 million had been spent on the appeal process, a sum she claimed was initially overlooked. ‘Have you budgeted for appeals?’ she asked.
Acting chief executive of the Department of Social Care Yvette Mellor said there had always been an appeals process and this had been budgeted for.