In R. v Lord Chancellor Ex p. Lightfoot [2000] Q.B. 597, Simon Brown L.J. (as he then was; pictured on the right in ermine in his capacity of a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary as Baron Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood) was able to say (at page 617) that:
"Some 20,000 bankruptcy orders are made each year."If we note the table below we can see that he was only some 1,550 or so people out for the year in question (2000), but that he was roughly in the ball park. Perhaps the most important thing to take from his introductory comment is the relatively low number of individuals passing through the singular legal procedure that is bankruptcy in the year 2000 compared to 2008. Some eight years later there were 64,480 people who were declared bankrupt in 2008. This amounts to a threefold increase in redress to this so called relief and rehabilitation mechanism.
A perusal of the excellent insolvency statistics database at the Insolvency Service (IS) always makes interesting reading. I have reproduced here the historical table of personal insolvency since 1960. In retrospect the increase of redress to bankruptcy from 2004 makes uncomfortable reading for proponents of the reduction in automatic discharge movement. More work on the drivers of personal insolvency needs to be undertaken before we can definitively say whether or not the legislative change in the automatic discharge period or the over extension of credit argument is responsible for the hike in figures from 2004.
The fact that Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) have experienced a similar upswing since 2004 could lend weight to the argument that it is the extension of credit driver that lays behind the increase in both procedures. Protagonists might however retort that this view is simplistic and that it does not take into account the rise of the so called 'IVA factories.'
With the recent increase in the Scottish personal insolvency statistics due to the LILA procedure, it looks as if the IS statisticians will be kept busy with the DRO procedure.
| INDIVIDUAL INSOLVENCIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES (1960-2008) | |||||||
| Not Seasonally Adjusted | |||||||
| Year | Total | Bankruptcy | Individual | Deeds of | |||
| Orders | Voluntary | Arrangements | |||||
| Arrangements | |||||||
| 1960 | 3,220 | 2,944 | : | 276 | |||
| 1961 | 3,941 | 3,642 | : | 299 | |||
| 1962 | 4,602 | 4,273 | : | 329 | |||
| 1963 | 4,370 | 4,129 | : | 241 | |||
| 1964 | 3,766 | 3,552 | : | 214 | |||
| 1965 | 3,762 | 3,556 | : | 206 | |||
| 1966 | 4,062 | 3,862 | : | 200 | |||
| 1967 | 4,386 | 4,224 | : | 162 | |||
| 1968 | 4,298 | 4,150 | : | 148 | |||
| 1969 | 4,772 | 4,552 | : | 220 | |||
| 1970 | 5,087 | 4,907 | : | 180 | |||
| 1971 | 4,793 | 4,643 | : | 150 | |||
| 1972 | 4,337 | 4,244 | : | 93 | |||
| 1973 | 3,917 | 3,817 | : | 100 | |||
| 1974 | 5,718 | 5,608 | : | 110 | |||
| 1975 | 7,271 | 7,143 | : | 128 | |||
| 1976 | 7,207 | 7,108 | : | 99 | |||
| 1977 | 4,485 | 4,403 | : | 82 | |||
| 1978 | 3,902 | 3,826 | : | 76 | |||
| 1979 | 3,500 | 3,456 | : | 44 | |||
| 1980 | 4,038 | 3,986 | : | 52 | |||
| 1981 | 5,151 | 5,075 | : | 76 | |||
| 1982 | 5,700 | 5,654 | : | 46 | |||
| 1983 | 7,032 | 6,981 | : | 51 | |||
| 1984 | 8,229 | 8,178 | : | 51 | |||
| 1985 | 6,776 | 6,728 | : | 48 | |||
| 1986 | 7,155 | 7,093 | : | 62 | |||
| 1987 | 7,427 | 6,994 | 404 | 29 | |||
| 1988 | 8,507 | 7,717 | 779 | 11 | |||
| 1989 | 9,365 | 8,138 | 1,224 | 3 | |||
| 1990 | 13,987 | 12,058 | 1,927 | 2 | |||
| 1991 | 25,640 | 22,632 | 3,002 | 6 | |||
| 1992 | 36,794 | 32,106 | 4,686 | 2 | |||
| 1993 | 36,703 | 31,016 | 5,679 | 8 | |||
| 1994 | 30,739 | 25,634 | 5,103 | 2 | |||
| 1995 | 26,319 | 21,933 | 4,384 | 2 | |||
| 1996 | 26,271 | 21,803 | 4,466 | 2 | |||
| 1997 | 24,441 | 19,892 | 4,545 | 4 | |||
| 1998 | 24,549 | 19,647 | 4,901 | 1 | |||
| 1999 | 28,806 | 21,611 | 7,195 | 0 | |||
| 2000 | 29,528 | 21,550 | 7,978 | 0 | |||
| 2001 | 29,775 | 23,477 | 6,298 | 0 | |||
| 2002 | 30,587 | 24,292 | 6,295 | 0 | |||
| 2003 | 35,604 | 28,021 | 7,583 | 0 | |||
| 2004 | 46,650 | 35,898 | 10,751 | 1 | |||
| 2005 | 67,584 | 47,291 | 20,293 | 0 | |||
| 2006 | 107,288 | 62,956 | 44,332 | 0 | |||
| 2007 | 106,645 | 64,480 | 42,165 | 0 | |||
| 2008 | p | 106,544 | 67,428 | 39,116 | 0 | ||
Picture Credit: http://www.dodonline.co.uk/photos/26870.jpg
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