This report is part of a wider three-year research project looking at how non-medical factors are tangled up in the real world of incapacity. The project has four strands of work:

• international comparisons of how incapacity assessment works in other countries
• perceived legitimacy: a new survey and series of deliberative workshops to look at what people think a fair test looks like
• better data so that we get figures we can trust about the employment rate of disabled people across time and place
• unequal incapacity: new research into how non-medical factors in incapacity actually work in practice

It concludes with a series of recommendations for how the new government in May 2015 can take the steps towards a new incapacity assessment. According to the report, this should be based on a real-world idea of incapacity, not for political reasons, but because it better reflects everyday realities.