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IVA figures out next week

A week tomorrow, 6th May, The Insolvency Service will publish the latest insolvency figures, showing us how many people entered an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement), bankruptcy or other form of insolvency in the first three months of 2011.

Looking back to last year, a total of 135,089 people in England and Wales entered insolvency throughout the whole of 2010.

For the first time ever, less than half of those cases were bankruptcies - while 59,194 people entered bankruptcy, 50,716 entered an IVA and 25,179 entered a DRO (Debt Relief Order).

In fact, the introduction of DROs (in April 2009) has really changed things. As The Insolvency Service tells us: `Some of those who had a DRO approved would have been declared bankrupt had the DRO route not been an option`. It does acknowledge, though, that it`s `not possible to quantify this proportion`.

In the final quarter before DROs were introduced, 20,446 people entered bankruptcy. Seven quarters later, in the final three months of 2010, 6,172 entered a DRO while just 12,049 entered bankruptcy.

While 2010`s total was an all-time high, there`s still some reason to hope insolvencies are on the way down - the number of people entering insolvency dropped in every quarter last year. While almost 36,000 were declared insolvent in the first quarter of 2010, by the final quarter this figure had fallen to below 31,000.