Legal News

According to an analysis of Experian 2012 saw the worst personal insolvencies of company executives and those living in the countryside

The overall statistics state that insolvencies across the UK fell last year but there was a significant rise in those affected from the UK’s managerial classes and those living in small villages or isolated farmhouses in rural Britain.
Analysis from Experian found that Scotland in particular suffered last year and accounted for the five places with the highest insolvency levels. Edinburgh stood ahead followed by Dundee, Aberdeen, Motherwell and the Parkhead area of Glasgow.
Southern England and the Midlands saw the biggest decreases in personal insolvencies, with Gloucester topping the chart along with areas of Bournemouth, Telford and Poole.

Jonathan Westley, of Experian, said though it was a welcome sign to see that personal insolvency levels were continuing to fall in the UK overall but there were still some areas of the UK which was feeling the strain.
It is as important as ever for organisations to be able to identify and segment customers based upon their specific needs and characteristics, enabling fair lending processes to the financially vulnerable.
Experian used 'mosaic people classification' to identify different groups within the UK population, before examining how insolvency affected each of them in 2012.
Experian found that the small and medium business owners and managers in large multinationals who are classified as ‘professional rewards’ class accounted for 5.6 percent of all insolvencies in 2012, up from 5.15 percent the year before.
Farmers, those who work for businesses servicing the farming sector, and those who have retired to rural communities saw insolvencies increase by 0.41 per cent.
‘Ex council community’ class, covering enterprising people who have had created comfortable lifestyles and living on pleasant and well built council estates were found to be having most insolvencies. Not all of them were seem to have achieved lifestyles of others however 13.57 per cent of total insolvencies came from this class.
Those on benefits, the low paid, the poorly educated and those in former mining and mill towns also struggled, though not as much as they did in 2011. However, those from traditional manufacturing communities did see the biggest fall in insolvencies during 2012.
But it came as no surprise that the UK’s rich suffered the lowest level of insolvencies at 1.58 per cent though a year ago it had shown a rise. Overall Experian research found Scotland had a much higher proportion of insolvencies than the rest of the UK.