While these figures are encouraging it doesn’t necessarily paint the whole picture as a lot of  small to medium sized businesses are still finding trading conditions very tough. With a lot of companies just treading water stagnation in the economy seems to be one of the biggest issues facing UK plc.

The total number of insolvencies fell by 12.5% during February compared to the same month last year – from 1,834 in February 2010 to 1,605 in February 2011 – bringing the rate of insolvencies down from 0.10% to 0.08%.

The overall financial strength score of UK businesses continued to improve, from 81.18 in February 2010 to 81.60 in February this year. The score also saw a small month-on-month improvement from 81.49 in January.

Scotland saw the greatest improvement with the lowest insolvency rate at 0.06% in February, while Wales saw the biggest increase to the rate of insolvencies rising to 0.11% from 0.08% in February 2010.

Yorkshire was the worst performing region with a rate of 0.13%, while Greater London continued to be the region where businesses had the lowest financial strength score at 80.51.

These Figures Conflict With Retailers Under Pressure Form Insolvency

However, last month saw a disturbing jump in the number of retail companies at high risk of going under, according to a report by RSM Tenon. The number of companies deemed to be at high risk of insolvency jumped by 4% in March compared to the month before, and jumped 2% compared to this time last year. The increase was the second in two months, reversing the positive trend that lasted nearly a year, bringing worrying news for the UK retail sector.

The news follows the announcement by the British Retail Consortium which reported its worst fall in sales since records began in 1996 with a drop of 1.9% in March compared to the same period last year.

A company voluntary arrangement is a legally binding agreement between a Company and its creditors, supervised by and insolvency practitioner. 

The CVA terms will see the closure of some stores and all tenants within the JJB property portfolio will move to monthly rent payments for the next two years.

Some 43 stores, two of which are not trading, will close on or before 24 April 2012. The CVA will also allow JJB to review the performance of a further 46 stores and enable closure of them on or before 24 April 2013, if the performance cannot be improved.

What is a Company Voluntary Arrangement?

A CVA is based on preserving the company, rebuilding sales and profits and paying something back over a period of time to be agreed. Directors remain in control, personal guarantees don’t get called in (usually) and it gives your business a fighting chance to survive.

Figures from HMRC show that the percentage of requests refused in 2009 stood at 2.7 per cent. In 2010, the refusal rate had risen to 5.8 per cent.

Time to Pay (TTP) was launched as part of HMRC’s Business Payment Support Service (BPSS) in November 2008 to help businesses and individuals seeking extra time to pay tax they owed. Since its launch, a total of 16,100 Time to Pay arrangements, worth £890 million, have been refused.

Despite speculation that HMRC has toughened its criteria for making Time to Pay arrangements, its website says: “There are no plans to close the BPSS or change HMRC’s TTP policy or approach.”

HMRC also says that requests that are initially refused may, after a period of time, be revised and resubmitted and an arrangement granted.

The new figures also revealed that since the launch of BPSS, 395,400 arrangements have been agreed, worth £6.83 billion. Of these, 46 per cent involved VAT, which also accounted for 50 per cent of the value of arrangements.

If your Time To Pay Arrangement is failing or has just been refused why not speak to one of our advisors who could come up with a Company rescue plan. Click here to request a call back or carry on the debate below by leaving your comments.

Useful Info on the TTP scheme here at HMRC website.

The mortgage website mortgage strategy has just released this article confirming that Connect Mortgage Group has gone bust. Apparently, A message on the firm’s switchboard says it has ceased trading and has appointed Portland Business and Financial Solutions as administrators. Administration is the correct insolvency terminology for business bankruptcy.

Connect Mortgage Group website states that the Company is the following: We are the first company in the UK that concentrates all its efforts on increasing the profits of directly authorised mortgage intermediaries through outsourcing. Its website says that over the last four years it has grown into one of the UK’s largest mortgage distributors with its members arranging over £4bn in lending during 2006.

The firm was financially backed by Venture Capital firms MMC Ventures.

The number of company liquidations dropped by 13.9 per cent from the year before to 3,974, while administrations plummeted by 35 per cent compared to the year before to 633. Company voluntary liquidations also dipped by 14.4 per cent on the same quarter last year.

Administrations have now fallen for six quarters in a row since they peaked in Q1 2009, which saw 1,311 companies fall into administration. It is encouraging that the number of business failures is dropping across all sectors.

Stock broker Wills & Co attracted wide media attention after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) clamped-down on the firm and banned it from giving investment advice following accusations of mis-selling.

In October 2007, the FSA fined Wills & Co £49,000 for giving poor risk warnings and misleading information to customers – often inexperienced members of the public – who bought high risk "penny shares".

Since the firm was banned from giving advice, the group ceased trading resulting within the FSA petitioning for a winding up order against the firm.

Last month, the company’s creditors approved its proposal for a CVA resulting within the FSA withdrawing its demand for the closure of Wills & Co.

Tony Murphy, partner at Bridge Company Recovery, said he was confident that the CVA would provide creditors with the maximum repyament.

It is estimated that unsecured creditors are likely to receive 19.1p within the pound returns.

The warning to comply with the regulator’s Financial Debt Management Guidance follows an OFT review from the financial debt administration sector which discovered an "unacceptable" degree of non-compliance issues within the business.

These included misleading advertising, adviser incompetence and poor awareness from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Independently audited evidence will now need to be submitted by the 129 companies within three months, to demonstrate that they have taken motion to address the regulator’s concerns. If evidence isn’t provided, the OFT will instigate licensing motion.

The OFT mentioned in a statement that it’s also looking to the two primary business bodies, the Financial debt Managers Requirements Association (DEMSA) and also the Financial debt Resolution Forum (DRF), to set an example in raising their requirements and meeting their commitments to be able to "make the business much more professional and responsible."

Ray Watson, director from the OFT’s client credit group, mentioned: "The degree of non-compliance we discovered across the business is unacceptable.

"Debt administration companies should be clear about their charges and also the choices obtainable to clients. If any from the 129 companies identified don’t enhance their requirements substantially they will probably be the subject of licensing motion by the OFT."

Misleading advertising was identified as the most substantial area of non-compliance, in specific failing to disclose when a fee is retained by the company and misrepresenting financial debt administration services as being free when they aren’t.

The OFT mentioned it discovered frontline advisers working for financial debt administration companies to be providing poor advice based on inadequate info. The regulator also plans to update its guidance to take explicit account of new and emerging unfair company practices.

Evidence if evidence where needed  hat Her Majesties Revenue and Customs are not so eager to deals under their Time To Pay program for mounting PAYE or VAT arrears as they used to be.

It is understood that Archial, which employs more than 400 staff, including about 200 architects, owes HMRC about £4m in unpaid taxes.

The group warned in August that its profits for this year would be lower as cuts in government spending caused projects to be cancelled or delayed.

It has emerged that the Aim quoted company has been negotiating with HMRC for some weeks before the tax authority issued its winding-up order.

If your Company is struggling to meet your tax liabilities or are suffering from creditor pressure please be advised that the Corporate Strategy team at Enable Finance are on hand to help, please call 0800 316 1612 or visit our business debt advice pages.

1,771 UK businesses failed during June 2010, 13.4% fewer than in June 2009 when 2,044 firms became insolvent. As a result, the year-on-year insolvency rate fell from 0.10% to 0.09% in June.

At 0.14%, the North East had the highest insolvency rate of the regions in June, with Yorkshire (0.12%) close behind. Businesses in the South West saw a UK low of 0.07%, while Greater London had an insolvency rate of 0.08%

Although these figures are encouraging its vital that businesses remain on their guard as we are not out of the woods yet.