Personal Insolvency Act 2012

Regulations that may be made by Insolvency Service regarding personal insolvency practitioners.

161.— The Insolvency Service, with the consent of the Minister, may and, if directed by the Minister to do so and in accordance with the terms of the direction, shall, following consultation with the Minister for Finance and with any other person or body as the Insolvency Service deems appropriate or as the Minister directs, by regulations provide for any of the following, for the purposes of the control and supervision of personal insolvency practitioners and the protection of debtors and creditors who are or may become parties to Debt Settlement Arrangements or Personal Insolvency Arrangements:

(a) the procedures governing—

(i) the authorisation of persons to carry on practice as personal insolvency practitioners; and

(ii) the termination, at a person’s request, of his or her authorisation to carry on practice as a personal insolvency practitioner;

(b) the standards to be observed in the performance of their functions by personal insolvency practitioners with particular reference to—

(i) the public interest;

(ii) the duties owed to debtors and creditors who are or may become parties to Debt Settlement Arrangements or Personal Insolvency Arrangements;

(iii) the professional and ethical conduct of personal insolvency practitioners;

(iv) the confidentiality of the information of debtors and creditors who are or may become parties to Debt Settlement Arrangements or Personal Insolvency Arrangements; and

(v) conflicts of interest;

(c) the qualifications (including levels of training, education and experience) or any other requirements (including required standards of competence, fitness and probity and required minimum levels of professional indemnity insurance) for the authorisation of persons to carry on practice as personal insolvency practitioners;

(d) the terms on which indemnity against losses is to be available to personal insolvency practitioners under any policy of indemnity insurance and the circumstances in which the right to such indemnity is to be excluded or modified;

(e) the records to be maintained and the information and returns to be provided to the Insolvency Service by personal insolvency practitioners; and

(f) the circumstances and purposes for which a personal insolvency practitioner may charge fees or costs or seek to recover outlays.