Company Insolvencies In Scotland

18th February 2023

Legislation relating to company insolvency in Scotland is partly devolved. AiB, Scotland's Insolvency Service, administers the Register of Insolvencies, which is a publicly accessible statutory register regarding the insolvency of individuals and businesses in Scotland, and includes company liquidations and receiverships.

This statistical release presents the numbers of compulsory liquidations, CVLs, administrations, CVAs and receivership appointments based on their registration date at Companies House, and therefore reflect company insolvency registrations rather than insolvency procedure start dates.

In December 2022 there were 114 company insolvencies registered in Scotland, 23% higher than the number in December 2021 and 28% higher than in December 2019. This was comprised of 22 compulsory liquidations, 85 CVLs and seven administrations.There were no receivership appointments or CVAs.

Historically, the volume of company insolvencies registered in Scotland has been driven by compulsory liquidations. However, since April 2020, there have been nearly three times as many CVLs as compulsory liquidations.

Figure 6 shows the historical trend of company insolvencies in Scotland covering the past three years. Monthly numbers back to January 2019 can be found in Table 8 of the accompanying tables.

Figure 6: In December 2022, the number of registered company insolvencies were higher than December 2021 and higher than pre-pandemic levels
Scotland, December 2019 to December 2022, Not seasonally adjusted

Between 26 June 2020 and 31 December 2022, in Scotland, no moratoriums were obtained and two companies had a restructuring plan registered at Companies House. These two procedures were created by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020.

Monthly company insolvency data for Scotland can be found in the accompanying tables. Further breakdowns of company insolvencies by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007) are also presented to two-digit level. Due to small numbers it was not feasible to present this information to three-digit level.

Note that this statistical bulletin does not present monthly individual insolvency statistics for Scotland. Until May 2021, monthly individual insolvency statistics for Scotland were published on the Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) website. However, this publication was discontinued as per this bulletin. Quarterly statistics on the number of individual insolvencies in Scotland continue to be published.

Read more information at -
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/monthly-insolvency-statistics-december-2022/commentary-monthly-insolvency-statistics-december-2022