FOI release

FOI 69 - Statistics relating to IPOS and IPAS

Updated 2 February 2022

Our ref: FOI21/22-069

Date: 22 September 2021

Dear

1. Re: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request

Thank you for your email of 24 August in which you requested from the Insolvency Service:

“Do you have any recent statistics relating to the following?

• Income Payment Orders (IPOs) - implemented under Section 310 of the Insolvency Act 1986

• Income Payment Agreements (IPAs) - implemented under Section 310A of the Insolvency Act 1986

• IPAs where payments derive from a nil tax coding notice only (I believe these are known as “NTC IPAs” within the Service).

I am trying to figure out how many of the above agreements were entered into by bankrupts, ideally month by month, over the past two years. If these figures could be broken down by office that would be even more helpful.”

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

The accompanying tables at Annex A provides the following numbers covering the two-year period 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2021 (latest data available):

• Table 1: All Income Payment Orders, by month and office allocated the case.
• Table 2: All Income Payment Agreements, by month and office allocated the case.
• Table 3: Nil Tax Income Payment Agreements, by month and office allocated the case.

Note that the office location recorded on the case information system does not reflect the location of the Bankrupt, it merely reflects the office that was assigned the case. Therefore, this information should not be used as a proxy for the Bankrupt’s location. This information will be particularly unreliable from 1 October 2020, as under the new Official Receivers Service (ORS) Operating Model, centralised teams were set up to manage elements of bankruptcy cases, including income payment orders and agreements. Office allocation was then made based on which office had the resource to manage the case.

Under section 16 of the Act (Advice and Assistance) you may find it useful to note:

IPA and IPO data for England and Wales were sourced from the Insolvency Service case information system.

IPOs are presented in Annex A by month of court order. IPAs are presented by month in which the Official Receiver signed the agreements.

The Insolvency Service publishes IPO and IPA statistics within the quarterly Individual Insolvency Statistics. Figures provided in this response may not match those previously published data, since the data were extracted from a live administrative system that is subject to amendments.

If you are not satisfied with the response that 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