Bankruptcies down

Fewer people went bankrupt last year, leaving the total number of personal insolvencies at its lowest since 2005.

There were 99,196 individual insolvencies in 2014, down 1.8% on the year before, including bankruptcies, debt relief orders and Individual Voluntary Arrangements or IVAs.

Bankruptcies were sharply down, by 17%, while IVAs rose slightly.

Insolvency experts say the economic recovery has helped and creditors have been more willing to enter into informal repayment agreements with people in financial difficulty.

Here are the stats.