Applications for a statutory moratorium

In 2023-24, there were 3,476 applications for a statutory moratoria granted. This is 208 (6.4%) more than the figure granted in 2022-23. Applications for a statutory moratorium have been increasing since 2019-20. Although the number of applications levelled off in 2021-22, there were still increases in 2022-23 and 2023-24, this can be seen in chart 2 below.

Chart 2: Statutory moratorium on diligence by year granted

Subsequent debt solutions following an application for statutory moratorium

In 2023-24, there were 847 individuals who subsequently entered into a statutory debt solution, 41.9% entered bankruptcy, 23.4% entered into a protected trust deed and 34.7% entered into a DPP under DAS. Chart 3 below is a sankey chart which shows the volume of debtors who applied for a moratorium and subsequently entered into each debt solution in 2023-24.

Chart 3: Outcomes of Statutory Moratorium Applications for 2023-24

Note, there are no unique identifiers linking debtors across the various case management systems. Where cases were not identical across systems, fuzzy matching was used to match similar cases. However, this can still miss cases and can lead to a small number of false matches. Although care has been taken to minimise errors, it should be considered when interpreting these statistics.

Awards of Bankruptcy

Total awards of bankruptcy in 2023-24 remain below pre-pandemic levels
Chart 4: Total awards of bankruptcy by financial year since 2015-16

A total of 2,495 bankruptcies were awarded this financial year, a 5.9% increase on 2022-23. Awards of bankruptcies are still below the levels we were seeing pre-pandemic. Since 2019-20 awards of bankruptcies have decreased by 47.5%.

Debtor applications accounted for the majority (80.8%) of bankruptcies awarded in 2023-24
Chart 5: Awards of bankruptcy by type in 2023-24

Awards of bankruptcy can be grouped into three types:

• debtor application - application made by the debtor to the Accountant in Bankruptcy
• creditor petition - applications to the court by a creditor to pursue the sequestration of a debtor
• trust deed petition - applications where the trustee under a trust deed has applied to the court for the debtor’s sequestration

Although still well below pre-pandemic levels, creditor petitions increased in 2023-24
Chart 6: Awards of bankruptcy by type since 2015-16

The number of bankruptcies awarded through debtor applications decreased by 0.5% in 2023-24 when compared with 2022-23. Awards of bankruptcy through creditor petitions increased by 45.0% from 331 in 2022-23 to 480 in 2023-24. There were no trust deed petitions awarded in 2023-24.

Type of debtor applications

In 2023-24, there were 2,015 awards of bankruptcy arising from debtor applications.

The majority of debtor applications in 2023-24 were through the Minimal Asset Process
Chart 7: Debtor applications by type for bankruptcies awarded in 2023-24

There are two types of debtor applications for bankruptcy - Minimal Asset Process (MAP) or Full Administration. In 2023-24, around 70.0% of bankruptcies awarded through debtor applications were MAP cases with the remaining cases being Full Administration.

Debtor applications have remained at similar levels since 2020-21
Chart 8: Debtor applications by type and year of award since 2015-16

Between 2019-20 and 2020-21, applications for both full administration and MAP fell, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for full administration decreased by 64% between 2019-20 and 2020-21, compared to a 25% decrease in MAP applications. Since 2020-21, figures for both MAP and full administration have remained relatively stable, with full administration and MAP applications decreasing by 7%. These trends are illustrated in Chart 8 above.

Not all debtor applications for bankruptcy result in an award being made and applications can be rejected (criteria for bankruptcy not met) or returned (application errors).

Applications for bankruptcy increased slightly in 2023-24 when compared with the previous year. In 2023-24, 2,119 applications for bankruptcy were received by AiB, compared with 2,085 in 2022-23.

Awards of bankruptcy by trustee appointment

In Scotland, a trustee is appointed to administer each bankruptcy. The Accountant in Bankruptcy (The Accountant) will be the trustee unless an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) is nominated to act. The Accountant is appointed as trustee in all MAP cases as there is no estate or contributions to be administered. The Accountant does not seek appointment as trustee in bankruptcies in but may be appointed as a default trustee if no other nomination is made.

The Accountant was appointed as trustee in the majority of bankruptcies awarded in 2023-24
Chart 9: Trustee appointments for bankruptcies awarded in 2023-24

In 2023-24 the Accountant was appointed as trustee in 89.3% of bankruptcies awarded, this is 2,221 cases, compared with 2,149 (91.2%) of bankruptcy awards in 2022-23. In the remaining 10.7% of cases, an IP was the nominated trustee in 2023-24.

Discharge from bankruptcy

A debtor in a bankruptcy will normally be bankrupt for one year. After this period they may be discharged. Although the debtor is discharged, the administration of the bankruptcy continues until the trustee has dealt with all of the estate and accounted for their work so that they can seek their own discharge. The full bankruptcy process can last 4 years or longer. A bankruptcy is considered concluded when the trustee has been discharged. In 2023-24 there were 2,820 bankruptcies discharged (based on discharge of the trustee), a 0.8% increase on the previous year.

Dividends in concluded bankruptcies

Of the bankruptcies concluded in 2023-24, 80.8% resulted in no dividend payable to creditors 1 resulted in a dividend payable to preferred creditors and 19.2% resulted in a dividend payable to ordinary creditors. This includes cases where a dividend could be payable and therefore excludes MAP cases.

No dividend was payable to creditors in the majority of bankruptcies concluded in 2023-24
Chart 10: Dividend outcomes for eligible bankruptcies concluded in 2023-24 (excluding MAP)

If all bankruptcy cases that concluded by discharge of the trustee in 2023-24 are considered, including MAP cases, a dividend was paid to ordinary creditors in 9.5% of cases.

Of all bankruptcies concluded in 2023-24 where a dividend was paid, a dividend of less than 25 pence in the £ was paid to ordinary creditors in approximately 52.1% of cases.
Chart 11: Bankruptcy dividend distribution for cases concluded in 2023-24

In 2023-24, 52.1% of cases where ordinary creditor dividends were paid resulted in a dividend of less than 25 pence in the £, which is more than the 48.0% of cases in 2022-23. Furthermore, 25.5% of cases were paid at 100 pence in the £, which is less than the 26.4% of cases in 2022-23.

The mean dividend paid to creditors in 2023-24 was 8.1 pence in the £
Chart 12: Mean divided paid to creditors by financial year of bankruptcy conclusion (excluding MAP)

For all cases in which a dividend was payable, the mean dividend paid to creditors for all cases including those with zero dividends was 8.1 pence in the £, compared with 13.1 in 2022-23.

In cases where the Accountant was appointed as trustee, the mean dividend was 8.6 pence in the £, compared with 7.5 pence in the £ for cases where a private sector trustee was appointed. Dividends are affected by the realised value of estate.

Contracted out insolvency services

The Insolvency Service Framework allows AiB to use external providers to administer bankruptcy cases on its behalf, where the Accountant has been appointed trustee.

In 2023-24, 807 cases were contracted out and 672 contracted out cases were discharged. Of these discharged cases, 343 (51.0%) were cases with assets realised.

Further information on these cases including the value of assets realised and the expenses on realisation are shown in the accompanying tables. Note, these figures are rounded to the nearest thousand pound, and totals may not equal the sum of the constituent parts due to rounding.

The total value of assets realised was around £8.0 million. Heritable assets, which are properties in the form of land, houses, and buildings that become heritable by accession made up around 65.7% of the value of all assets realised. Ingathered contributions and funds made up 31.9% of the value of all assets realised.

The total expenses of realisation was around £2.7 million, the majority of which was made up of expenses on secured assets.

PTDs concluded

When the administration of a PTD is complete, the trustee must apply to creditors to be discharged.

There were 7,170 PTDs concluded in 2023-24. Of these, a dividend was paid to creditors in 80.0% of cases concluded in year, an increase on the proportion in the previous year (76.6%).

When we exclude failed PTDs (these are PTDs where the debtor is not discharged, but the trustee is), a dividend was paid in 90.6% of cases concluded in 2023-24.

Of the 5,736 cases where ordinary creditor dividends were paid:

• 71.9% of cases paid at less than 25 pence in the pound, which is less than the 73.9% of cases in 2022-23.

• 2.2% of cases were paid at 100 pence in the pound plus interest, which is less than the 2.5% of cases in 2022-23.

The distribution of dividends to ordinary creditors can be seen in chart 15 below

The majority of dividends paid to ordinary creditor were less than 25p per pound

Chart 15: Dividend distribution for concluded PTDs in 2023-24

In 2023-24, almost £61.7 million was ingathered:

• 5.7% more than the total receipts in 2022-23.

• 41.9% of the total receipts were payable to ordinary creditors through a dividend, compared with 39.7% in 2022-23

Meaning the majority of total receipts were allocated to administration expenses.

• The average administration cost of a PTD that concluded with a dividend payable was £5,900 in 2023-24 compared with £6,100 in 2022-23.

• For all PTDs including those with zero dividends, the mean dividend paid to ordinary creditors during 2023-24 was 17.3 pence in the £ compared with 15.8 pence in the £ in 2022-23.

• In 2023-24, over £3.3 million was ingathered for PTDs concluded where no dividend was payable, compared with £3.9 million in 2022-23.

• The average administration cost of a PTD that concluded with no dividend payable was £2,300 in 2023-24, compared with £2,400 in 2022-23.

PTD Form 7 and Form 11 performance

The Form 7 and Form 11 returns detail the trustee’s actual statement of realisation and distribution of estate under a PTD. The following tables summarise the performance based on this information from the Form 7 returns.

The percentage of cases where administration costs have increased by 25% or more includes PTDs where there has been increased complexity or a lack of co-operation from the debtor, requiring the trustee to commit more time to the administration in these cases.

The number of PTDs where a dividend was not paid to creditors decreased in 2023-24 by 15.5%. A proportion of these cases were not concluded, therefore the debtor was not discharged from liability to pay the debts included in the PTD.

Outcome of DPPs

Since DAS was introduced, just over 53,500 DAS DPPs have been approved. Looking at each DAS case it can be established whether it has been completed, revoked or remains live and ongoing.

Chart 17: DPP status as at 31 March 2024 by financial year that the DPP was approved

Chart 17 shows the outcome status for DAS cases by financial year of the approval date as at 31 March 2024. It should be noted that around 34.7% of DAS cases are still ongoing and a DPP approved in the last three financial years is expected to last for between 5.7 and 6.2 years.

Chart 18: survival rate of DPPs by approval year

Chart 18 above shows the length of survival of approved DAS cases by financial year of the approval date since 2015-16. The survival rate is the proportion of cases which are still live or have been successfully completed, so for example the survival rate after five years tells us the percentage of cases which were completed or were still live five years after approval. The survival rate for a DPP three years after approval has been increasing since 2015-16 from 66% to 74% in 2021-22, this means that there is a higher percentage of live or completed cases at the three year mark for cases approved in 2021-22 than for cases approved in 2015-16, this can be seen in chart 19a. The four and five year survival rates have also been improving, seen in charts 19b and 19c.

Charts 19a, 19b, 19c: Three, four and five year survival rates by approval year

Average contribution level by type of debt solutions

Chart 23 below shows the median monthly contribution (payment) level by financial year and type of debt solution. In the last five financial years, the median monthly contributions in DPPs (between £160 and £220) have been greater than in PTDs (£140). The median monthly contributions in creditor petitions has fluctuated over the last few years, reaching an all time high this year with the median monthly contribution at £280.

Chart 23: Median monthly contribution by debt solution since 2015-16

Official Statistics label

These official statistics provide key information on personal and corporate insolvencies in Scotland. Official statistics are produced by professional independent statistical staff.

Section 6.1 of the 2007 Statistics and Registration Service Act defines official statistics as those produced by:

• the UK Statistics Authority
• government departments (including executive agencies)
• the Devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• any other person acting on behalf of the Crown or
• any other organisation named on an Official Statistics Order

Under the Act, official statistics should:

• follow the Code of Practice for Statistics and
• fall within the scope of the Office for Statistics Regulation

The Office for Statistics Regulation assesses their compliance against the Code of Practice

Further information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland is available here - About our statistics - gov.scot.

Data Sources

The statistics for Scottish statutory debt solutions (bankruptcies, PTDs, and the DAS) use administrative data processed within AiB. These are stored on the systems BASYS, ASTRA and eDEN (formerly DASH) respectively. Note DASH was decommissioned on 30 June 2019 and its replacement system, eDEN, went live on 1 July 2019.

The exception to this is creditor and trustee petition bankruptcies. This is sourced from the courts that grant them and then stored on the BASYS system.

The statistics for statutory moratorium on diligence also use administrative data processed within AiB. This is stored on the Register of Insolvencies.

Corporate insolvencies calculated using administrative data records provided by the courts and insolvency professionals (liquidators and receivers). Corporate insolvency statistics published by AiB may differ from equivalent statistics published by The Insolvency Service. This is because the Insolvency Service use their own administrative data of records and Companies House to produce their statistics. There may be a time lag between the award/registration date and the date on which AiB receives notice of the insolvency.

Methodology

Figures are produced from tabulation of raw data from relevant administrative systems for the number of:

• bankruptcies
• PTDs
• DPPs under the DAS
• statutory moratorium on diligence and
• corporate insolvencies

The numbers of personal insolvencies reported are based on:

• the date of the court order
• agreement of the insolvency procedure or
• approval date

For creditor petitions, the published figures will be influenced by the late reporting of court orders. This may lead to underestimating the number of creditor petitions awarded. Creditor petitions statistics are subsequently adjusted after the final quarterly release of the financial year. The revised figures are reflected in the first quarterly report of the next financial year.

The number of DPPs under the DAS reported are based on the approval date of the DPP. The number of statutory moratorium on diligence reported are based on the submission date of the granted moratorium.

AiB must be notified of all company liquidations and receiverships in Scotland. AiB publishes quarterly official statistics based on its own administrative records.

General Revisions and Corrections

In general, all figures for the previous financial years reported in this publication should be final and should not be revised in future. This is in line with the current revision policy. Sometimes, when quality assuring the data for the latest years, errors in term of data classifications applied may come to light. In this case, we may correct the erroneous data classifications in previous year. We will alert users of our statistics about such corrections.

Quality

The statistics produced by AiB are the most complete record of the number of statutory debt solutions and statutory moratorium on diligence. Statistics on corporate insolvencies are also included.

The statistics presented here do not include non-statutory debt solutions (where debtors make their own arrangements with creditors or enter informal debt management plans with a debt management firm).

These statistics are published on the fourth Wednesday of the month following the end of the quarter being reported on.

The exact publication date is pre-announced through a 12-month release calendar. This gives a specific release date at least four weeks in advance where possible – Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot

Statutory debt solutions statistics can be compared between different types of debt solutions. They can also be used to identify trends over time.

Changes in legislation and policy may affect the extent to which comparisons can be made over time for individual data series. Such changes might cause breaks in time series so that statistics from before and after the change are not comparable. Where this is known, they have been highlighted in the commentary and in the general background notes.

It is important to note that the operational, policy and legislative differences in all nations of UK. Users should be mindful of this caveat when making comparisons with other parts of the UK.

Correspondence and enquiries

For enquiries about this publication please contact:

AiB Statistics, Accountant in Bankruptcy
Email: aib_statistics@aib.gov.uk

For general enquiries about Scottish Government statistics please contact:

Office of the Chief Statistician
Telephone: 0131 244 0442
Email: statistics.enquiries@gov.scot

How to access background or source data

The data collected for this statistical bulletin are available on the AiB Statistics webpages at https://aib.gov.uk/statistics-and-reporting.

Details of bankruptcies, PTDs, liquidations and receiverships can be found on the Register of Insolvencies, which is maintained by Accountant in Bankruptcy and can be accessed at: https://roi.aib.gov.uk/roi/.

The DAS register is an online public register which holds information about those who have a DPP under DAS, available at: https://eden.aib.gov.uk/dasregister.

Complaints and suggestions

If you are not satisfied with our service or have any comments or suggestions, please write to:
The Chief Statistician, 2W, St Andrews House, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG
Telephone: (0131) 244 0302
Email: statistics.enquiries@gov.scot

If you would like to be consulted about statistical collections or receive notification of publications, please register your interest at: https://blogs.gov.scot/statistics/

Details of forthcoming publications can be found at: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot