The Insolvency Service Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023
Insolvency Service Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023
Applies to England and Wales
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Chief Executive’s foreword
This report sets out the solid progress we have made during the last year, supporting our customers and ensuring that we have an Agency fit for the future. We are nearly halfway through implementing our 5-year strategy, helping the UK economy to grow, delivering excellent standards of public services, and putting our customers and stakeholders at the heart of everything we do.
Business insolvencies have risen this year after an unprecedented two years of low numbers during the pandemic. The number of company cases handled by our Official Receivers increased during the year, reaching monthly pre-pandemic levels by the year end. The number of compulsory liquidations was over three times as many this year compared to last year. This is a result of HMRC and other major creditors resuming their winding up activities post pandemic, and some banks taking enforcement action against non-repayment of Bounce Back Loans.
The number of claims to the Redundancy Payments Service also increased from a little under 45,000 last year to just under 60,000 this year.
Increases in personal insolvencies have been relatively small, with bankruptcies remaining, as last year, historically low. The number of Breathing Space applications granted increased more substantially, from just under 60,000 last year to nearly 77,000 this year.
During the year we continued our journey to implement the projects which will deliver our strategic vision for the Insolvency Service to be at the centre of a fair, efficient, and effective insolvency system and to be a global leader in insolvency solutions for citizens and for businesses. This is underpinned and supported by a profession that is recognised for the highest professional, technical and ethical standards when carrying out its work.
This year’s achievements include further modernisation of our technology and infrastructure. We became one of the first Government agencies to enable customers to use a digital form to amend claims for holiday pay owed because of their employer becoming insolvent. We also undertook substantial work to centralise some Official Receivers’ functions, to deliver a more efficient, swifter service for our customers and make better use of our resources.
Our Director Information Hub went live shortly after year end. This provides a single entry-point on GOV.UK to help directors, particularly of small and micro businesses, understand their obligations, identify the risks of possible insolvency, what to do about it and where to find help.
Helping directors before insolvency becomes inevitable is a new area of business for us, and something our stakeholders have warmly welcomed.
Our major programme to transform our workplaces, providing the right locations for our customers, with modern, collaborative workspaces for our people, continued. This significant project supports the long-term ambitions set out in the Government’s Levelling Up and Places for Growth strategies and will see the Agency move from 22 locations to 11 regional hubs, located in places that work for our customers. During the year, we closed our offices at Cambridge, Watford and Southend with colleagues transferring to regional hubs in Ipswich and East London.
In supporting economic confidence, the Insolvency Service has a key role to play in ensuring that business and the public have confidence that where there is an insolvency, it will be dealt with fairly and appropriately, and where there is evidence of misconduct or breaches of the law, action will be taken.
A key area of focus for our work through the year has been misconduct in relation to Covid-19 Financial Support, accounting for nearly half of all director disqualifications outcomes, and 40% of all bankruptcy restrictions. Where possible we have also taken steps to recover the funds lost to the taxpayer because of this type of misconduct, with over £835,000 of claims made against disqualified directors so far and many more cases in the pipeline.
We have continued to develop the insolvency regime to ensure it provides effective, consistent regulation and promotes a vibrant and innovative profession. We undertook a call for evidence on the effectiveness of the personal insolvency regime which received many helpful responses. We published the Government’s response in July and are now working with stakeholders to develop further proposals for consultation. We also worked during the year to determine the best way forward following the Government’s consultation on the future of insolvency regulation and published next steps to strengthen the regulatory framework in September 2023.
To ensure the UK continues to be at the forefront of global insolvency and a major centre for cross-border proceedings, we consulted on the incorporation of two new UNCITRAL Model Laws on cross-border insolvency into UK law, which the Government has now committed to take forward.
In January, we launched our new agency values aligned to our agency strategy and our Inclusion First and People strategies. Our commitment to improving capability has been supported by the launch of a new skills tool to support learning and development plans. We have also successfully supported our people to gain additional skills and qualifications including several members of staff passing the industry “gold standard” joint insolvency examinations, our first lawyer successfully qualifying through the CILEX programme in October 2023, and 43 colleagues joining the Government Counter Fraud profession.
Looking ahead we will continue to work collaboratively to ensure the agency remains effective, adaptable and resilient, delivering economic confidence for businesses and citizens and supporting the country’s economic growth.
The next year will be one where we see a lot of our work to transform our technology come to fruition, providing a strong platform for future delivery. We will also be continuing our journey to transform our workplaces for our people and customers and taking forward plans to improve the insolvency and enforcement regimes.