Approved Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) arrangements: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the following information:

1. How many DAS arrangements have been approved that last between 0-5 years per organisation, how many of these clients are homeowners.
2. How many DAS arrangements have been approved that last between 5-10 years per organisation, how many of these clients are homeowners.
3. How many DAS arrangements have been approved that last more than 10 years per organisation, how many of these clients are homeowners.
4. Whether all the public sector and third sector organisations who have attained the Scottish Standard for Information and Debt Advice.

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested, detailed below and attached in the Excel spreadsheet format you asked for. Note that nearly all the information below is as at 31 March 2019.

The final financial year 2018-2019 and provisional 2019-20 Q1 data will be published on Wednesday 24 July 2019 as part of the Scottish Quarterly Insolvency Statistics 2019-20 Q1 report, and further detailed statistics will be available as part of the AiB’s Annual Report 2018-19, which is due on September 2019. Hence, under section 27(1) of FOISA we do not have provide information which is already planned to be released.

1. How many DAS arrangements have been approved per organisation, that last: Between 0-5 years; Between 5-10 years; More than 10 years:

The number of completed Debt Payment Programmes (DPPs), as at 31 March 2019, under the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) by organisation and the duration of completed DPP, since 2005-06 is shown in the following table.
Caution is needed when interpreting figures as those presented here are not consistent with the official, headline quarterly statistics. This is because the DAS outcome figures have been compiled at a different point in time using a bespoke data extract from a live database. Consequently, this results in five older DPP cases whose organisation is unknown and so are excluded from this analysis.

Table attached in Excel attachment below.

2. How many clients of these DAS arrangements are homeowners:

AiB does not hold information on whether these debtors are homeowners or not as the DAS application form does not require a debtor to confirm ownership of, or interest in, any property. We are not required to request this information for the purpose of DAS. This is a notice under section 17 of FOISA that the information you have requested is not held.

3. Whether all the public sector and third sector organisations who have attained the Scottish Standard for Information and Debt Advice.

AiB does not hold information on how many public sector and third sector organisations have attained the Scottish Standard for Information and Debt Advice.

Regulation 8 of the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) Regulations 2011, as amended, specifies the approved categories of money advisers. Regulation 8(c) is a specific provision for DAS approval status for a money adviser who “…works as a money adviser for organisations which have been awarded accreditation at Type 2 level or above against the Scottish National Standards for Information and Advice Provision…”.

In light of the above, I can confirm that, in terms of money advisers applying for DAS approval status under regulation 8, of the 89 free to client organisations registered on AiB’s DASH case management system, five have been approved under DAS Regulation 8(c).

In addition, of the rest of others free to client organisations:

• 50 are approved under Regulation 8(d) – a member of Citizens Advice Bureaux
• 22 are approved under Regulation 8(e) – works as an adviser for a Local Authority council
• 12 are approved under Regulation 8(f) – approved by the DAS Administrator under regulation 9.

It is perhaps also worth noting AiB is aware that some organisations who are approved under categories (d), (e) and (f) also have accreditation which meets the Scottish National Standards, but this is not information held, or required to be held, by AiB.

About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI-19-01514 - Information Released

File type

Excel document

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14.1 kB