There were 28,973 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in the fourth quarter of 2011. This was a decrease of 5.6% on the same period a year ago.

This was made up of 8,626 bankruptcies (which were down 28.3% on the corresponding quarter of the previous year), 13,047 Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs), (which were up 4.5% on the corresponding quarter of the previous year) and 7,300 Debt Relief Orders (DROs), (which were up 18.3% on the corresponding quarter of the previous year).  In April 2011 a change was introduced to Debt Relief Order legislation to allow those who have built up value in a pension scheme to apply for debt relief under these provisions; this will have increased the overall numbers of those eligible to apply for a Debt Relief Order, and is also expected to have had some impact on the numbers of bankruptcy orders.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 6,747 bankruptcies were made on the petition of the debtor (representing 78% of total cases); both the level of debtor petition bankruptcies and their share of total cases have been falling since the beginning of 2009 when there were 17,606 (86% of the total). The percentage of bankruptcy orders involving trading debts (self-employed bankrupts) was 20.7% in the third quarter of 2011 (fourth quarter 2011 figures for trading-related bankruptcies are not yet available); similar to during the first half of 2011, but higher than throughout the previous few years; this is mainly due to the decline in numbers of cases involving consumer debts (non-traders).

 

The full report is viewable here.