Drop in personal insolvencies welcomed

The continued fall in personal insolvencies has been welcomed by business recovery body R3.

Earlier this month, the Insolvency Service said there were 30,162 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2011, a decrease of 15.5 per cent compared with the same period one year ago.

Of these insolvencies, 12,539 were bankruptcies, 10,835 were individual voluntary arrangements and 6,788 were debt relief orders.

Frances Coulson, president of R3, said research shows that four in five consumers have changed their spending habits in an attempt to save money, and the figures indicate that these changes are paying off.

"However, this data only captures those that are in formal insolvency procedures so we are unable to gauge how many households are struggling," she said.

Ms Coulson added that on average, people start to struggle 20 days after payday, with many attempting to bridge the gap by taking on more debt.

Interestingly, the percentage of bankruptcy orders involving trading debts (self-employed bankruptcies) was significantly higher in the last quarter of 2010 than levels seen in recent quarters.