Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent the mis-selling of individual voluntary arrangements.

Used appropriately, Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) provide a flexible, accessible way for consumers in financial difficulty to come to an arrangement with their creditors. Acting as oversight regulator on behalf of the Secretary of State, the Insolvency Service works with the Recognised Professional Bodies that regulate the insolvency practitioners who supervise IVAs to ensure that relevant technical and ethical guidance in this area is adhered to, and where it is not, that regulatory action is taken.

The Insolvency Service has published guidance to the Recognised Professional Bodies on monitoring volume IVA providers that it expects them to follow. This includes reviewing “introducer” agreements with particular reference to marketing and quality of advice, and an expectation that in instances where it has been identified that an IVA provider has engaged an introducer firm that provides unregulated advice, the agreement will be terminated.

Officials work closely with the Financial Conduct Authority, the Advertising Standards Authority and the not-for-profit advice sector, all of which have an interest in this area, to ensure that consumers have access to clear and appropriate debt advice for their circumstances.

The Government is currently considering responses to its consultation on the future of insolvency practitioner regulation, including a proposal to introduce the regulation of firms offering insolvency services (including IVA providers) and will publish its response in due course.