My client who is a Polish National started work in July 2005 and registered this job under the worker registration scheme within one month. She continued to work in this job until August 2006, so had completed her 12 months, but in January 2006 started an additional part time job which she did not register under the Worker Registration Scheme . My clients claim for Child Benefit has been refused on the basis that the later job meant that she was working illegally. Has anyone come across a similiar siutation? and does the fact that the worker had not completed the 12 months in the registered job when starting the second job, mean that she has lost the right to reside.

Any comments welcome.

Well, s.5(2) of The Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations says "An accession State worker requiring registration shall be treated as a worker for the purpose of the definition of "qualified person" in regulation 5(1) of the 2000 Regulations only during a period in which he is working in the United Kingdom for AN AUTHORISED EMPLOYER" (my emphasis) which gives me some hope. I can't see anywhere in the regs where it says that illegal work makes otherwise legal work illegal - but someone else might be able to see it.

1. Your client had completed the 12 months as a registered worker and so because of Reg 2(4) of the Accession (imm and worker etc) Regs 2004 is no longer an "accession state worker requiring registration".

2. Therefore Reg 5 of those regs does not apply to your client and they are in the same position as any other EU national working in UK- they have a right to reside and cannot be denied CB

(rant warning - rant to follow)

This is the first (as far as I can see) rightsnet query giving evidence of HMRC's new EU decision making team - they failed to apply the R to R test for the first few years. I am sure that their documented failure to pass appeals to the Tribunal Service etc is going to be a nightmare with these sort of cases and will probably mean some people are entirely destitute whilst they wait around for clearly wrong decisions to be put right.

Woops - sorry,

also-

Reg 2(7)(b) says a person is legally working during any period in which he is working in the UK for authorised employer (ie has registered). Regs completely silent on what happens if they also have a job they have not registered.

Many thanks for both sets of comments. I agree that it's a worrying development that people could be left without child benefit or ctc and face destitution.

I've had contact with them re R2R issues - it was fairly pain-free.

We had a hearing on 4th May 2007 which I was not at but the tribunal had my submission on the basis that my client had completed 12 months registered work and that reg 2 (7)(b)of the Accession (Immigration and Worker etc) Regs 2004 provides that a person is working legally when working for an authorised employer. At the hearing the chair said to my client that this was complicated and she would need a day or two to think about it and would post the decision. Three weeks later we still do not have a decision and TTS say that the chair has reserved the decision and that it could be sometime before a decision is made.

Any suggestions on how to expedite the decision or how to proceed would be much appreciated.

Alan.