The Insolvency Service has taken an axe to red tape and slashed the number of meetings needed during insolvency procedures as well as introducing a single gateway for complaints against insolvency practitioners (IPs).
Announcing the changes, business minister Jo Swinson said the measures - which will require legislation - are expected to save over £30m a year which can be passed onto creditors in an insolvency process.
From today, most practitioner complaints will be routed through a common 'complaints gateway' run by the Insolvency Service in Leeds, creating a far more accessible route for those with a grievance. Previously, complainants had to work out which of the eight relevant authorising bodies to complain to.
Swinson said: 'An easy route to complain is important for consumers - especially when they are going through a bankruptcy or have suffered from a company's failure and they think an insolvency practitioner has not acted correctly.
'This new complaints gateway will help consumers dealing with the insolvency industry to get speedier resolution of problems and easier access to the right information. Such problems might, for example, be poor communication by the practitioner or worries about their independence.'
The single complaints gateway covers the majority of regulated IPs such as the ICAEW, Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA), ACCA , ICAS and ICAI.
The minister said the government would be 'cutting out needless processes' to ensure the cost of administering insolvencies is reduced 'with savings being passed on to creditors, without removing necessary protections'.
She also announced that insolvency industry regulators had worked together to develop common sanctions against IPs when complaints were upheld against them and to achieve greater consistency in reviews and appeal decisions.
Philip King, chief executive of the Institute for Credit Management, said: 'We believe that making insolvency processes more efficient and harnessing new technology to streamline the process still further will ultimately enhance the creditors' position, reduce the overall cost of administrations, and further improve the relationship between creditors and IPs.
'The "red tape challenge" has provided an opportunity to bring together the views of various stakeholders and has helped the drive for change in the way creditors look at insolvency.'
Some of the key highlights include increasing the flexibility on how creditors engage in the decision making process, and removing the requirement for IPs to hold unnecessary meetings with creditors.
Other streamlining moves include enabling IPs to make greater use of electronic communications, such as placing notices on websites instead of sending individual letters to creditors and improving the process by which IPs report misconduct by directors of insolvent companies to the secretary of state, enabling investigations to start earlier.
The changes also remove the requirement for trustees in bankruptcy and liquidators in court winding-ups to apply to creditor committees before undertaking certain functions, to achieve consistency with powers in administrations.
Swinson also announced the publication of the Insolvency Service's Annual Review of Regulation for 2012 which includes details of the agency's monitoring activities as oversight regulator as well as the outcomes from disciplinary action by regulators during 2012.
An IS spokeswoman said the government's review of pre-pack administrations - announced by Lord Younger in the House of Lords in March - was due to be published 'in the summer'.