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What constitutes ‘continuous’ ? Residing legally for more than 5 years but with small gaps in employment.
Hi
I have an EEA national whom worked between Oct 09 and January 12. Seemingly under workers reg.
She claimed JSA from March 12 and this remains an ongoing claim under the pre 1/1/14 rules.
She is due to give birth May 15 and we are looking at whether we can show she has resided legally for 5 continuous years.
She started work 16/10/09 but was laid off sometime in Dec 10 (with a 2 week gap due to temporary illness - should be fine).
She didnt register as a jobseeker, instead she looked for work and lived off her savings (no health insurance). She resumed employment 8/2/11 we think with the same agency.
She worked until 28/1/12 when she was laid off again, looked for work but didn’t actually sign on until March 12.
We will not be advising her to claim I/S at this point given the situation with JSA/HB, but given they are to reassess all the pre 1/1/14 JSA claimants and subject them to GPoW starting imminently she may find herself needing to rely on 5 years residing legally, not to mention what the DWP may do to her JSA claim once the baby arrives.
No family members, first child on the way nothing else to link her to other than 5 years.
Thoughts appreciated on how the gaps should be treated, i’ve looked at SSWP v Dias and i’m none the wiser….!
This might help from Judge Rowland specifying caps are not always fatal depends on the length of the gap and the reasons.
and two other relevant cases are Judge Jacobs CIS/4304/2007 SSWP v IR [2009] UKUT11 and Judge White CIS/2423/2009 [2013] UKUT 0163
The comment that 3 months would in normal circumstances seem to be the maximum seems to me to indicate that anything under that can be argued (and even over it but only in exceptional circs). Ruth
Thanks for that much appreciated