This year 134,142 people entered into personal insolvency which is in line with many forecasts and shows that as the UK economy comes out of recession, the UK consumer continues to struggle with personal debt and will do for some time yet.
The figures show that 17,007 individuals were made bankrupt this quarter, 13,219 entered into Individual Voluntary Arrangements (‘IVA’) and 5,348 Debt Relief Orders ('DRO'). This totals 35,574 personal insolvencies in Q4 of 2009, which is a 24.9% increase on the same quarter of 2008.
Pat Boyden, partner and personal insolvency expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said: “The huge numbers of people entering insolvency demonstrates the real effect the recession is having on the average person in the UK. However, the one chink of light in this worrying story is that more of those people entering insolvency are entering into IVAs as opposed to straight bankruptcy, meaning they are seeking ways of settling their debts.”
