THE MAN who saved Dundee FC from financial oblivion has warned that 400 Scots will go bankrupt each week in 2013.
Bryan Jackson, corporate recovery partner with accountants and business advisers PKF, said that 20,000 Scots had been sequestrated the Scottish term for bankruptcy or took out a Protected Trust Deed in 2012 and a similar number of people are expected to go bust this year.
Public sector job losses, rising utility bills and food costs coupled with frozen wage rises has left many people borrowing money just to survive, often from high-interest payday lenders.
Mr Jackson said this means it is unlikely there will be any fall in the number of people being declared bankrupt over the next 12 months.
“There was a widespread assumption that the economy would start to show signs of recovery in 2012,” he said. “However, it is clear from the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, as well as other statistical and anecdotal evidence, that sustained economic growth remains elusive.
“The result is that personal insolvencies, whilst stabilising, remain at a very high rate in historic terms.
“Personal insolvencies appear to be steady at around 20,000 per year. While this number is lower than the peak achieved in 2009, when 23,541 Scots were made bankrupt, it is, by any standards, a very high figure indeed.
“In 2004 there were 9,321 Scottish personal bankruptcies and in 1998 there were just 4,465. The reality is that 400 Scots face financial Armageddon each week.”
He added: “With no improvement in the economy, employment insecurity rife, and rising living costs, there is little sign of this level of personal insolvency reducing over the next three to four years.”
Mr Jackson was appointed administrator of Dundee FC when the club when into administration for the second time in 2010.
smorkis@thecourier.co.uk