Expenses of going to work taken into account for ‘genuine and effective’ test?

The background to this is that my client is a Polish national who was self employed, but was earning very little - on average only about £7 per week.  Initially the LA gave her the benefit of the doubt and accepted that she was a self-employed worker, but recently she had her HB/CTB stopped, as after several months in business she had not managed to increase her earnings, so the work was deemed as no longer genuine and effective.  She is in the process of challenging this decision but has lost about 3 months’ benefit.

She has now managed to get a day a week employed work, earning approx £50, and has been able to get HB back into payment.  However she will soon have to start paying £20 per week in childcare (on top of what Tax Credits will pay), and given her previous experience is quite worried that this will be taken into account and that her net earnings will be deemed too low for the work to count as genuine and effective.  I have said I am not aware that this would be the case, but does anyone have any experience of this either way?

In my view the expenses etc. of going to work are an irrelevance to the genuine and effective test. That is not to say that the LA will agree.

I think this because if you look at the caselaw from the European Court of Justice on genuine and effective versus marginal and ancillary it is all about taking into account factors which are internal to the work relationship rather than things which are external to it.

Thanks, that was my view as well, but it will be good to be able to tell her I have got a second opinion that agrees this is the case, as she is rather anxious about it.