Complaints about the system to test whether people are entitled to incapacity benefits or are capable of work have been growing relentlessly in the six years since the French company Atos was awarded the £100 million a year contract to assess claimants for the Government.

Teething troubles could have been expected and even excused if they had resulted in lessons learned and adjustments made. Quite the opposite appears to be the case. So many claimants are now going to appeal tribunals that extra sittings are being held on Saturdays across the UK (including Hamilton and Dundee) to deal with the growing backlog of cases.

That number is multiplying as the success rate of appeals grows. Citizens Advice Scotland now wins 69% of appeals at tribunals. This partly reflects their growing expertise at recognising flawed decisions but if it is obvious to a third-sector advice agency that so many of Atos's cases have been mishandled, it must be possible for the company to review its procedures to ensure the correct outcome. The greatest difficulty centres on assessing whether people currently on incapacity benefit qualify for its replacement, Employment Support Allowance. It has become disturbingly clear that people are being judged fit to work even when suffering from cancer or Parkinson's disease.

Last year, The Herald revealed that two people from West Dunbartonshire who had lost incapacity benefit had died from their long-standing conditions while waiting for appeals to be heard. Now Tom Greatrex, the Labour MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, has established that 29 other people in this situation have died in the last three years. This fact alone must bring about a greater flexibility in the system.

The disabling effects of many chronic conditions, particularly mental illnesses and degenerative diseases, are not always apparent in a short interview and they are least likely to be recognised when the broader purpose underlying the assessment procedure is to reduce the number of benefit claimants.

Those who cheat their fellow taxpayers by attempting to milk the system must be identified and stopped but when the rules are applied so crudely that large numbers of cases go to appeal and a high proportion of those are upheld, the additional costs also rebound on the taxpayer. Meanwhile, genuine claimants are subjected to additional strain and financial hardship. If the number of appeals continues to rise at the present rate, the administration costs alone will reach £60 million over this financial year.

It is in everyone's interest to have an efficient welfare state but that can only be achieved by recognising that efficiency and welfare are not mutually exclusive but constituent parts of the whole. It is time Atos was subjected to a rigorous work capability test because on current performance it should no longer qualify for employment support.