FOI release

FOI 171 - Annual levels of referrals from Insolvency practitioners for investigations towards the disqualifications of directors

Updated 17 August 2022

Our ref: FOI 20/21-171

Date: 27 January 2021

Dear,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your email of 14 January in which you requested from the Insolvency Service:

Please can you direct me to a data series showing annual levels of referrals from insolvency practitioners to the insolvency service for investigations towards the disqualification of directors?

Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I can confirm the agency holds the information that you have requested and I have provided the data in the table below. I have included some narrative to help understand the figures and what they mean.

Period	D1	D2	Sift In	Sift Out
10/11	5373	Not Held	N/A	N/A
11/12	5401	11835	N/A	N/A
12/13	5330	12031	N/A	N/A
13/14	4671	10741	N/A	N/A
14/15	4620	9514	N/A	N/A
15/16	4277	8882	N/A	N/A
16/17	2057	3936	5664	4142
17/18	2	4	8528	5403
18/19	N/A	N/A	9059	5613
19/20	N/A	N/A	8784	5996
20/21	N/A	N/A	4720	4034

Insolvency Practitioners have a duty to submit a report on all companies that enter insolvency proceedings. Insolvencies prior to 6 April 2016 when the reporting rules changed, an Insolvency Practitioner had to submit a conduct report on all insolvency proceedings in each company. For instance, where a company entered Administration and then moved to Creditors Voluntary Liquidation, a report would be required for each process. From 6 April 2016, the new rules only require a report to be submitted in the first insolvency proceedings, so in the example above, only in the Administration.

D1 and D2 were paper based reports where the Insolvency Practitioner gave their opinion as to whether they thought there was director misconduct in a company or not. The D1 report was where, in their opinion, there was misconduct and a D2 was where in their opinion there had been no misconduct. Following the reporting rules changes in 2016, Insolvency Practitioners now complete a questionnaire via an online portal. The answers to the questions are passed through an algorithm that flags whether there is potential misconduct or not. A sift in report is one where potential misconduct is identified and a sift out is where no potential misconduct is identified. In sift in cases, the Insolvency Service will make further enquiries to determine if a full investigation is appropriate.

For the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 years, both types of report were received as some cases fell under the old rules based on their insolvency date.

If you are not satisfied with the response we have provided you and would like us to reconsider our decision by way of an internal review (IR), please contact our Information Rights Team at foi@insolvency.gov.uk or by post at:

Information Rights Team

The Insolvency Service

3rd Floor

Cannon House

18 Priory Queensway

Birmingham

B4 6FD

United Kingdom

You also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you wish for them to investigate any complaint you may have regarding our handling of your request. However, please note that the ICO is likely to expect an IR to have been completed in the first instance.

Yours sincerely,

Information Rights Team

The Insolvency Service

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Official receivers and the Adjudicator are Data Controllers in respect of personal data processed by the Insolvency Service. For the details about how personal data is processed by the agency, please see the full Insolvency Service Personal Information Charter here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service/about/personal-information-charter