Many people who are unfit to work through illness or disability are not being properly assessed by officials from the UWV, the AD reported on Friday, quoting the benefits agency’s own research.

In more than half the cases, the research was not carried out properly, medical records were not accessed or the wrong conclusions were reached about how much work people could do, the AD said.

The agency research is based on a random selection of 239 files as part of annual quality controls.

The benefits agency is supposed to calculate how much work people are able to do, and their benefits are based on this figure.

The problem is particularly acute in follow-up telephone assessments, which are often used to check up on claimants after several months, the paper said. Some 80% of these checks were not done properly.