The Employment and Support Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008

Calculation of earnings of self-employed earners

92.—(1) Except where paragraph (2) applies, where a claimant’s income consists of earnings from employment as a self-employed earner the weekly amount of the claimant’s earnings is to be determined by reference to the claimant’s average weekly earnings from that employment—

(a) over a period of one year; or

(b) where the claimant has recently become engaged in that employment or there has been a change which is likely to affect the normal pattern of business, over such other period as may, in any particular case, enable the weekly amount of the claimant’s earnings to be determined more accurately.

(2) Where the claimant’s earnings consist of—

(a) royalties;

(b) sums paid periodically for or in respect of any copyright; or

(c) payments in respect of any book registered under the Public Lending Right Scheme 1982(1),

those earnings are to be taken into account over a period equal to such number of weeks as is equal to the number obtained (and any fraction is to be treated as a corresponding fraction of a week) by dividing the earnings by the amount of an income-related allowance which would be payable had the payment not been made plus an amount equal to the total of the sums which would fall to be disregarded from the payment under Schedule 7 (sums to be disregarded in the calculation of earnings) as is appropriate in the claimant’s case.

(3) For the purposes of this regulation the claimant’s earnings are to be calculated in accordance with Chapter 4.

(1)

See Appendix 2 to S.I. 1990/2360