Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24

AiB performs statutory functions to determine and process bankruptcy applications, protect and supervise trust deeds and decide on debt payment programmes under DAS. AiB also has a duty to minimise the cost to the public purse for undertaking these activities.

AiB’s key measures for 2023-24 show AiB performing well. Performance is assessed against three main criteria: time, cost and quality. AiB will continue to take action to improve its services and these KPIs will help identify key areas.

Our 2022-23 business plan made a commitment to a full review of performance measures during the financial year. Revised measures and targets were implemented from the start of 2023-24 with outcomes reported here.

Case processing times

Bankruptcy target: 9 days

2023-24 Bankruptcy KPI outcome: 7.2 days

The time from when a self-nominated application is submitted and the fee received until a bankruptcy is awarded and published on the Register of Insolvencies.

DAS target: 4 days

2023-24 DAS KPI outcome: 3.0 days

The sum of both: the time from initial receipt of a Debt Payment Programme (DPP) until proposal letters are issued to creditors; and from the end of the creditor approval period until the DPP decision letters are issued.

PTD target: 1.5 days

2023-24 PTD KPI outcome: 0.9 days

The time taken from receipt by AiB of a Form 3 (which is the submission by the trustee of a trust deed for protection) until the protection or rejection of the trust deed.

The time KPI results reflect ongoing improvements made to our digital platforms meaning an increase in electronic case related communications rather than dependency on traditional mail services. An increase in stakeholder engagement through events and working groups has helped streamline some processes to enable a faster outcome for those applying for one of the debt solutions.

Administration cost per case

To keep the average costs of case administration within the following limits:

MAP cost target – £139

2023-24 MAP KPI outcome - £129

Bankruptcy cost target - £213                   

2023-24 bankruptcy KPI outcome - £245

Debt Arrangement Scheme cost target - £39

2023-24 DAS KPI outcome - £36

The cost KPIs exclude insolvency practitioner fees and case outlays which are dependent on case-specific circumstances. They also exclude all office overheads, including systems depreciation which are fixed regardless of case volumes.

In 2023-24 AiB bettered cost targets for the Minimum Asset Process and the Debt Arrangement Scheme process.

The bankruptcy process target was not achieved, costing on average an extra £32 per case.

These cost results can be partly attributed to the trends in case volumes for each of the different debt relief solutions. In 2023-24 AiB saw an increase in the number of Debt Payment Programmes submitted under the Debt Arrangement Scheme and Minimum Asset Process bankruptcies, whereas there was not the forecast growth in full administration bankruptcies that had been expected following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sustainability

At the start of 2023-24 AiB planned to set new annual targets and map our route to net zero by 2045. During the period we were able to establish trends over the last 5-10 years but did not feel this was enough to fully understand how we set meaningful short and long term targets.

As such, in 2024-25 we will look at a few areas such as paper consumption, where rather than simply reducing the amount of paper used through increasing use of digital alternatives, we reflect the environmental benefits of reducing paper usage.

Likewise for our Net Zero by 2045 timeline, we will look closer at our energy consumption and build our understanding of where we are using greener energy and where we can reduce non-green energy consumption which is made up of more damaging carbon emissions.

To this end, AiB commenced a project during 2023-24 to introduce an energy monitoring system. Expected to be installed during 2024-25 the system will enable us to better monitor and understand our energy usage, consumption and carbon footprint. Scottish Government are also undertaking an assessment of their estate, for which AiB will support any improvement recommendations.

AiB continues to investigate energy efficient lighting and solar panelling to reduce future carbon consumption.

The increase in paper consumption was due to an IT failure within the print-hub which required frequent re-runs of printing before a resolution was put in place. AiB’s outgoing number of pages per letter also increased in relation to DAS statements as a breakdown in transaction was issued along with statements. As listed in key change 4  AiB have been actioning processes which will have a positive impact on our paper consumption in the coming year.

Dr Richard Dennis

Accountable Officer

03 December 2024