I have a client from Poland who worked for an employer for a period and was then self employed. This totals over a year but he was NOT registered under the registration scheme.

Is there any way he qualifies for income related JSA?

I'm bumping this back up to the top as I have a client in the same situation. I can't see that he's entitled to JSA, but maybe somebody else can correct me?

And can they claim after Mayday?

Tue 07-Apr-09 09:09 PM by Fosco

I would imagine that you cant count periods of self employment towards the 12 month requirement. I also think the periods of unregistered work would be disregarded when considering if the A8 national satisfies the 12 month registered work requirement. ( assuming all the periods of work are post 2004)

Self employment is NOT covered in the IWR regs and periods of self employment should be assessed as every other EU national.

How did he come to no longer be self employed and what was it he was doing? If it is just that he has not had any business for a while he may still count as self employed and therefore have a right to reside.

We currently have a case where we are arguing that a self employed person who is looking for self employed work remains a qualified person as a self employed person. Clearly however if a person doesnt take any steps to seek further work as a self employed person he would be endanger of losing that status and thus his RTR.

MIght be an oportunity to dust off some old caselaw on UB which might be useful, although the context of the law concerned was obviously completely different.

R1/79(UB) where it is decided that someone who did 2 weeks self employed work but couldn't get any more and was looking for employment as well could get UB quotes from another decision 11/62 (U.B.):

“It is not always easy to find the dividing line between the genuinely self-employed person who at a particular time has no orders on hand and the man who is genuinely seeking work as an employed person but who is prepared to take on an occasional job as a self-employed person while he is waiting for an offer of full-time employment. A self-employed man usually makes some efforts to solicit business by such means as advertising, placing a notice outside his home or approaching people who would be likely to require his services.”

Reg 4(1)(b) of the Imm (EEA) Regs says self-employed people are those coming under Article 43 of the Treaty. Here is a clip from Article 43:

“Freedom of establishment shall include the right to take up and pursue activities as self employed persons and to set up and manage undertakings…”

That seems to suggest to me that searching for work may be included. To ‘take up’ work surely means looking to find it, and ‘set up… undertakings seems to suggest activity leading up to actual production of goods/services etc. I don’t know if I am over stretching the words – what do you think?

Self-employment is all about periods of feast and famine. I very much doubt if HMRC would agree that a short period of no work would compromise the status of ‘self-employment’. On a sort of related point, we know that tax credits rules are cool about short gaps in work.

Steve

Hi. See CIS/3213/2007 which confirms that a self employed person doesn't need to register. Cheers Ros