Insolvency Service Releases Third 2011 Quarter Statistics

The government’s insolvency service released the statistics for insolvencies for the third quarter of 2011.

There were 30, 219 individual insolvencies in England and Wales for this period, the third quarter of 2011.  This represents a decrease of 11% from the same time period last year 2010.

Of the 30,219 insolvencies, 9,567 were bankruptcies, 13,048 Individual Voluntary Arrangements/IVA’s, and 7,604 Debt Relief Orders/DRO’s.

These figures represent a 31.2% decrease in bankruptcies over last year, a 0.7% increase in IVA’s over last year, and a 7.6% increase in DRO’s over last year.

Debt Relief Orders have been on the increase since they were introduced a couple of years ago, and it is easy to see how they have increased as there had been a need for such a form of insolvency for quite some time.

Bankruptcies being down considerably could be due to the high fees involved with going bankrupt.  Currently the fees are £700 per person and they are due at the time of filing the bankruptcy forms.

And while bankruptcies may be down in numbers for now, DRO’s are on the rise and this still adds to the number of insolvencies in the UK.

The bottom line is more and more people are finding themselves insolvent and in need of the court’s assistance, in the form of bankruptcy or some other form of insolvency.