Can anyone help? I need to recheck some things with the client, but I have a Lithuanian man who came to UK in 1998 as an asylum seeker. He got permission to work and has worked in UK for almost all of his six years here. He was made redundant in June 2004. JSA has been refused on grounds of no recourse. HB has been applied for, but they are querying why he is not on JSA. He has been advised to claim contribution based JSA. I would be grateful for info from anyone who has dealt with cases like this and who may have used the argument that a client such as this is a worker under EU provisions.

First surely the JSA claim would have been a Contribution based claim first and income based second. Secondly, assuming Lithuania is one of the A8 countries (sorry not got list to hand) then recourse to public funds not an issue as he is an EEA national. Problems arise when HRT is applied but I would argue that he is a worker. Previous EU caselaw has decided that if you have worked and you have lost employment involuntarily you are still a worker. The new registration procedures do not exclude from benefits as the accession treaty did not provide for powers to do that for workers. It hasn't been tested yet but I don't think that having to register for work can stop you being classed as a worker under previous EU caselaw.