Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Statement by Chief Executive on performance for the period

The following pages provide an overview of Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB), its purpose and how AiB performed during 2024-25 in providing statutory debt solutions to the people of Scotland and supporting and working with those who make this possible.

AiB’s 2024-25 business plan set out our priority for driving forward an agenda of continuous improvement of our processes, systems and stakeholder engagement, all while piloting new ways of flexible working.

There was ongoing independent monitoring and assessment of the flexible working pilot to evaluate success. This report reflects on that success including how it drove efficiencies in business process without detriment to our stakeholders, how we were able to maintain and improve performance, and how it improved staff wellbeing.

The Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 15 July 2024. Provisions in the Bill will be brought into force by commencement regulations, the first provisions came into force in January 2025. A public consultation on regulations for a Mental Health Moratorium was published on 9 December 2024 and ran for 14 weeks before closing on 17 March 2025. Analysis of the consultation is ongoing and a summary of response report will be published.

We continued our drive towards a ‘digital by default’ model with further updates made to operational processes in 2024-25. This included preparing for a move to the Cloud which will improve accessibility to AiB systems, reduce dependency on both hardware and software, provide higher system performance levels and availability, enable quicker application deployment, improve business continuity and reduce costs.

AiB has also adopted the new Scottish Government (SG) human resources and finance system. The Oracle Cloud system went live in October 2024. This was a significant change.

Work commenced with SG during 2024-25 to prepare for new co-tenants to AiB’s Kilwinning office. This meets the SG Estates Strategy, making best value use of available office space.

This overview contains some high-level statistics on bankruptcies awarded, trust deeds protected, and debt payment programmes approved under the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS). It includes an assessment of the most significant risks facing AiB and reports on our key performance measures for service delivery and sustainability.

AiB’s mission gives an overarching framework for how we deliver our statutory and general functions:

• delivering, with stakeholders, a range of options for individuals seeking debt relief and debt management
• supervising personal insolvency in Scotland
• providing statutory information by maintaining a public register of insolvencies and the DAS register
• supporting ministers in developing policy options to improve Scotland’s statutory debt solutions and diligence measures
• protecting creditors and the public
• achieving best value

The National Performance Framework is for all of Scotland. It sets out a vision for collective wellbeing. It contains 11 National Outcomes supported by 81 national indicators. AiB's Business Plan sets out the future objectives for the organisation which will help deliver against these outcomes and indicators, particularly the indicator for unmanageable debt.

Find out more about AiB, including who we are and what we do, on the AiB website.

Key issues and risks affecting the organisation

Risk Management

AiB maintains a corporate risk register which identifies the critical internal and external risks with potential impacts on AiB’s work and pinpoints the actions required to reduce the threat of these risks occurring or mitigate their impact should they materialise. The register is reviewed on a monthly basis by the Senior Management team and presented quarterly to the AiB Audit Committee and AiB Advisory Board for scrutiny and review.

Each branch within AiB maintains a local risk register. Any business critical risks will be escalated to the corporate risk register. AiB’s assurance map documents business activity and provides assurances to senior managers and the Accountable Officer. The map also serves as a tool to identify emerging risk.

Key corporate risk management activities during 2024-25 were:

Trends and factors affecting the future

The Agency’s core business remains the administration and regulation of the core statutory debt solutions. Overall demand levels remain low – although the Debt Arrangement Scheme currently has more live cases than ever before. Within bankruptcy, we have also seen two noticeable shifts in the balance of cases coming forward. There are fewer cases that can cover their costs, and fewer cases that do not fall to the Agency as the trustee of last resort. Our forecast is that current volumes and case mix are likely to be broadly similar in 2025-26. This, together with the ever increasing pressure on public spending, is likely to require the Agency to continue to deliver efficiency savings year on year in order to live within its budget.

Information risk and data protection

AiB is committed to ensuring it fully meets data protection requirements, and all staff complete annual training to ensure compliance with the relevant legislation.

AiB has responsibility for processing and handling personal and sensitive information, such as individuals’ personal financial details. AiB follows Scottish Government policy on information security and has a Senior Information Risk Owner along with a Data Protection Officer and Information Asset Owners in place to manage risk to personal information.

To best ensure AiB meets its statutory obligations, AiB has developed a comprehensive privacy and data protection policy which is published on our website.

The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) highlighted individuals’ rights to access information held about them, to have inaccurate information amended and to ask for personal information to be deleted.

During 2024- 25 AiB received 323 requests (2023-24 - 211 requests) for disclosure of personal data under Schedule 2, Part 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and 15 subject access requests under Section 45 of the Data Protection Act 2018 – details are given in the following table:

Risk of fraud, bribery or corruption

All Scottish Government staff are required to adhere to the values of the Civil Service Code of Conduct. This includes declaring any interests which may lead to a conflict on a centrally recorded human resources database.

AiB has a fraud policy and response plan and a counter fraud officer who reports at each Audit Committee meeting on any matters of interest or concern. All staff undergo mandatory fraud training when entering the organisation and must complete annual refresher training.

During 2024-25 there were no incidents of fraud identified by AiB (2023-24 – no incidents). In 2024-25 an additional training session on financial and procurement fraud was held as part of AiB’s cyber week. This session provided more information on the fraud threats facing public services such as AiB, what to do in the event of a suspected fraud and the steps taken by AiB to prevent such frauds occurring.