I owe the Insolvency Service an apology. I must have sounded like an ungrateful child at Christmas when I tweeted that we’d heard all their Red Tape-cutting measures before. Such is the disadvantage of having lived with my list for Santa for several months already and such is the immediacy of Twitter. Sorry, Insolvency Service!

The Insolvency Service’s release on 23 January 2014 – http://insolvency.presscentre.com/Press-Releases/Reforms-to-cut-insolvency-red-tape-unveiled-69853.aspx – announced that several measures, aired in its consultation document in July 2013, are to be taken forward, either via primary legislation changes “when Parliamentary time allows” or via changes to the Rules, which are “due for completion in 2015/16”. I’d blogged about the consultation document’s proposals on 16 August 2013 at http://wp.me/p2FU2Z-3Q. Here, I try to decipher exactly which of the consultation’s proposals are being taken forward, which is not as simple a task as it may sound!

“Allowing IPs to communicate with creditors electronically, instead of letters”

The consultation had set out a proposal that IPs could use websites to post creditors’ reports etc., as they do now, but without the need to send a letter to each creditor every time something is posted to the website. The proposal was that there would be one letter to creditors informing them that all future circulars would be posted to the website.

In my view, this really would save costs. I see quite a few IPs are now posting reports to websites, so it would be lovely to avoid even the periodic one-pager to creditors informing them of the publication of something new, although I’d love to see the statistics on how many people (other than us insolvency people) actually look at the reports on websites…

Of course, the Rules already provide that an IP can post everything onto a website, but at present only with a court order. Thus, I’m wondering, is the next bullet point simply another way of describing this first of Santa’s gifts..?

“Removing the requirements for office holders to obtain court orders for certain actions (e.g. extending administrations, posting information on websites)”

It’s not exactly clear what the Service has in mind on administration extensions. The consultation document suggested that administration extensions might be allowed with creditors’ consent for a period longer than 6 months. It suggested that creditors could be asked to extend for 12 months (with a 6-month extension by consent still an option), although it asked whether we thought that creditors should be allowed to approve longer extensions. So is the plan that creditors be allowed to extend a maximum of 12 months or longer?

And I’d like to know if the Service is persuaded to make any changes to the consent-giving process: are they going to stick to the requirement that all secured creditors must approve an extension (whether it is a Para 52(1)(b) case or not and no matter what the security attaches to or where the creditor appears in the pecking order), as is currently the case, or could they – please?! – lighten up on this requirement? And are they going to clarify that once a creditor is paid in full, they do not count for this, and other, voting purposes? So many questions remain…

The consultation document contained several other proposals for avoiding the court, such as “clarifying” that administrators need not apply to court to distribute a prescribed part to unsecured creditors (although I’m not sure why administrators should not be allowed also to distribute non-prescribed part monies to unsecured creditors). Coupled with changes to the extension process, administrations are no longer appearing to be the short-term temporary process that the Enterprise Act seemed to present them as.

“Reducing record keeping requirements by IPs which are only used for internal purposes”

I’m not entirely sure what this means. Does this refer to the current need to retain time records on all cases, including those where the fees are fixed on a percentage basis? These are internal records (even though they probably serve no purpose), but does that also mean that Rules 1.55 and 5.66, requiring Nominees/Supervisors to provide time cost information on request by a creditor, will be abolished?

Or does this statement relate to the maintenance of Reg 13 IP Case Records in their entirety? These are, in effect, records for internal purposes (in fact, they’re not even that, are they? Does anyone actually use them?), although the Regs provide that the RPBs/IS are entitled to inspect the Reg 13 records. So does that still make them an internal-purpose record?

I would like to think that the Service has accepted that the Reg 13 record is a complete waste of time and is planning to abolish it entirely. However, as I flagged up in my earlier post, the consultation document proposed that “legislation should require IPs to maintain whatever records necessary to justify the actions and decisions they may have taken on a case. It is not expected that such a provision would impose a new requirement, but rather codify what is already expected of regulated professionals.” Does this recent announcement mean that the Service will not seek to implement this measure? Let’s hope so!

“Simplifying the process of reporting director misconduct to make the process quicker by introducing electronic forms to ensure timely action is brought against them in a timely way, providing a higher level of protection to the business community and public”

Electronic D-forms? Lovely, we’ll have those, thank you, although in my view it’s not a big deal: it just avoids a bit of printing.

What makes me a little nervous is the use of “timely” twice in this statement. The consultation proposed to change the deadline for a D-form to 3 months and the Service believed that this would not be an issue for IPs if its other proposal – to drop the requirement for IPs to express an opinion on whether the conduct makes it appear that the person is unfit to be a director and replace it with a requirement to provide “details of director behaviour which may indicate unfitness” – is also taken up.

As I explained in my earlier post, personally I don’t see this as a great quid pro quo for IPs and I don’t think it will help the Service catch the bad guys much quicker. When faced with slippery directors, 3 months is a very short time to gather all the threads.

“Allowing office-holders to rely on the insolvent’s records when paying small claims, reducing the need for creditors to complete claim forms”

The consultation document proposed that IPs could admit claims under £1,000 per the statement of affairs or accounting records without any claim form or supporting documentation from creditors (although creditors would still be free to submit claims contradicting statements of affairs).

It doesn’t seem right to me – there’s a sense of fudginess about it, particularly in view of the shabbiness of most insolvents’ records just before they topple – but I guess that, in the scheme of things, it’s not a big deal if a creditor receives a few pounds more than he’s entitled to on one case, but a bit less on another. It might be academic anyway, given the final measure…

“Reducing costs by removing the requirement to pay out small dividends and instead using the money for the wider benefit of creditors”

The Service had proposed that, where a dividend payment would be less than, say, £5 or £10, it would not be paid to the creditor, but would go to the disqualification unit or the Treasury. The consultation document had asked whether the threshold should be per interim/final dividend or across the total dividends. Given the likely difficulties of keeping track of small unpaid dividend cheques, I do hope that the Service has its eye clearly set on saving costs and will stick with a threshold for each dividend payment declared. As with the previous measure, although it brings in a sense of creditor equality that seems more suited to Animal Farm, we are only talking about small sums here, so I guess it makes practical sense.

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Thank you, Insolvency Santa, for giving us a peek into your big red sack of goodies. It’s great to see some really promising outcomes from the Red Tape Challenge, even if we have to see at least one more Christmas pass by before we get to open our prezzies.