Most people land here because a deduction has appeared on a payslip and the code beside it means nothing. Below is the whole set in a comparison table, then each one with its deduction rates and the difference between a wage arrestment and an earnings arrestment attached.

Because three separate legal regimes reach the same payslip. Scottish diligence sits in the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, the DWP and the Child Maintenance Service have routes that skip the court, and insolvency adds two more.

What diligence means in Scots law

Scots law calls the enforcement of a debt diligence, and an earnings arrestment is the diligence used against wages under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987. It needs something behind it, either a court decree for an ordinary creditor or a summary warrant for a council chasing council tax.

The regimes that skip the court entirely

The DWP and the Child Maintenance Service do not have to raise an action to reach your wages, because each has its own statutory power.

Insolvency adds two. A debtor contribution order comes out of sequestration, and a trust deed payment instruction comes from a trustee collecting an agreed contribution.

Both sit under the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, which the Accountant in Bankruptcy administers.

The fastest way to place your deduction is to read across a single row. Who issues it, what it recovers and whether a court was involved will usually identify it in seconds.

Who issues each one, and what it recovers

Four of the seven need no court order at all, and a council needs only a summary warrant, granted without a hearing.

Who handles the money, and how much comes off

Only one of the seven sends your money to a court official rather than to the creditor.

The final column is where published advice usually goes wrong. Whether you can have more than one wage arrestment at the same time sets out the rule in full.

Why an attachment of earnings order is not on the list

An attachment of earnings order is an English and Welsh instrument and is not one of the seven. UK-wide advice built around it will not describe what is happening on a Scottish payslip.

Each has its own trigger, its own arithmetic and its own body behind it. They are set out below in the order you are most likely to meet them.

1. Earnings arrestment

The standard diligence against wages, used by ordinary creditors holding a decree and by councils enforcing a summary warrant. Deductions come from net earnings using the Schedule 2 tables.

The current tables were substituted by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 and came into force on 6 April 2025. No April 2026 uprating was made.

Monthly net pay of £1,800.00 produces £172.50, weekly net pay of £400.00 produces £36.85, and £749.00 in a month produces £0.00. Our wage arrestment calculator does the lookup for you, including the £1.00 your employer may take on top.

2. Conjoined arrestment order

A conjoined arrestment order, or CAO, rolls debts owed to different creditors into one deduction under Part III of the 1987 Act. The sheriff clerk administers it, takes the money from your employer and distributes it.

A second ordinary creditor cannot add another earnings arrestment, so a CAO is the route they have to take.

3. Current maintenance arrestment

A current maintenance arrestment, or CMA, recovers ongoing maintenance under sections 51 to 53 of the 1987 Act. The protected daily rate is £24.66, the same as the nil threshold on the daily earnings arrestment table.

Your employer deducts the lesser of the daily maintenance rate multiplied by the days since the last deduction, or net earnings above the protected daily rate multiplied by those same days. No interest accrues on maintenance arrears recovered this way.

Take £5.00 a day, 30 days and net earnings of £60.00 a day. The two calculations give £150.00 and £1,060.20, so £150.00 comes off.

4. Deduction from earnings order

A deduction from earnings order, or DEO, is used by the Child Maintenance Service under the Child Support Act 1991, covering arrears and ongoing liability with no court order needed. In Scotland it takes priority over every other deduction on this list.

5. Direct earnings attachment

A direct earnings attachment, or DEA, is a DWP power used mainly for benefit overpayments, and it operates UK-wide. It needs no court order and no charge for payment, which is the sharpest difference from a Scottish earnings arrestment.

The rate is a percentage of the whole net figure rather than a slice of an excess. A higher rate also exists, topping out at 40%.

At £1,800.00 net a month an earnings arrestment takes £172.50, while a standard rate DEA takes 15% of the whole £1,800.00, or £270.00. Employers work from the DWP’s direct earnings attachment guide for employers.

6. Debtor contribution order

A debtor contribution order, or DCO, is set by the Accountant in Bankruptcy in sequestration, under Part 6 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. The amount is your whole assessed surplus income, worked out with the common financial tool rather than from a percentage table.

Where your income is only social security benefits and tax credits, no contribution is due. The default payment period is 48 months from the first payment, and it continues after discharge.

It only reaches your employer if you stop paying, when the trustee can instruct a deduction after two missed intervals.

7. Trust deed payment instruction

A trustee under a protected trust deed can instruct your employer to deduct the agreed contribution and pay it over. It is not diligence, and it is not a creditor enforcing anything.

The power sits in section 174 of the 2016 Act, and the trustee can use it after two consecutive missed contributions. You can also ask for one yourself.

Only one diligence against earnings can operate against the same employment at a time. A current maintenance arrestment is the exception that may run alongside an ordinary earnings arrestment.

The one-at-a-time rule, stated correctly

A second ordinary creditor cannot add a second earnings arrestment on top of the first, and has to apply for a conjoined arrestment order instead.

While a conjoined arrestment order is in force, it is not competent to execute a separate earnings arrestment or current maintenance arrestment against that debtor’s earnings from that employer.

The current maintenance arrestment exception

A current maintenance arrestment can run alongside an ordinary earnings arrestment, because they are separate diligences recovering different things. It is the only exception in the regime.

Where a direct earnings attachment sits in the queue

The Scottish priority order puts a CMS deduction from earnings order, a conjoined arrestment order, an earnings arrestment and a current maintenance arrestment first. A direct earnings attachment comes after those.

Where the priority orders already take 40% or more of your net earnings, no DEA is deducted that period, although your employer still returns a nil schedule. That rule is set out in the DWP’s guide for employers.

The three protected floors, and why they are not the same

Three different floors are in play, and merging them causes real errors.

• An earnings arrestment protects a fixed cash nil band of £750.00 a month, £172.61 a week or £24.66 a day, and has no percentage cap at all.
• A CMS deduction from earnings order leaves you at least 60% of your net earnings.
• A DWP direct earnings attachment works to a 60% floor measured against your total deductions.

The 60% figure does not reach an earnings arrestment, and above £3,750.00 a month the top band takes £625.00 plus half of the excess. That is why how much they can take from your wages is so often misreported.

Look at who sent the paperwork rather than at the code on the payslip. The creditor identifies the regime faster than the deduction reference does.

Start with who wrote to you

• A council, or a sheriff officer firm such as Scott & Co, Stirling Park, Walker Love or Alex M Adamson, points to an earnings arrestment.
• A DWP letter about a benefit overpayment points to a direct earnings attachment.
• Child Maintenance Service correspondence points to a deduction from earnings order.
• Sheriff clerk correspondence naming several creditors points to a conjoined arrestment order.
• An insolvency practitioner or the Accountant in Bankruptcy points to a trust deed instruction or a debtor contribution order.

Ask payroll what instruction they hold

Payroll holds the document and can tell you who served it, and asking tells them nothing new. If the debt behind it is council tax, our council tax debt advice page covers what a council will and will not agree to.

Check the payslip line against the right table

An earnings arrestment figure should match the Schedule 2 row for your net pay in that period, while a flat percentage of your whole net pay points to a DEA or a DEO. A separate £1.00 is the employer administration charge.

It depends entirely on which of the seven it is. An earnings arrestment has no affordability route at all, while the insolvency deductions are reassessed when your circumstances change.

Options against an earnings arrestment

A sheriff cannot reduce a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot afford it, and your employer cannot lower it either. The change has to come from a Time to Pay Order, the Debt Arrangement Scheme, a trust deed or sequestration.

Where the sheriff grants a Time to Pay Order, the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment. The debt has to be £25,000 or less excluding interest, and the sheriff clerk at your local sheriff court can confirm whether an application is competent.

It is not settled whether an earnings arrestment on its own satisfies the entry condition in section 5(1)(b), so treat it as worth asking about rather than an entitlement. A Time to Pay Direction is the pre-decree version and is not available against a summary warrant.

An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment, with interest, fees and charges frozen. Our guide to stopping a wage arrestment in Scotland takes each route in order.

Options against a DEO, a DEA or an insolvency deduction

A DEO and a DEA are not diligence, and the routes in this guide do not generally displace them. Ask a money adviser what reaches your own position, and the Child Maintenance Service or the DWP about the rate set.

A debtor contribution order and a trust deed contribution are reassessed on a change of circumstances, and a trustee can vary or quash a contribution order.

Sequestration and a protected trust deed end an existing earnings arrestment, on the date of sequestration and the date of protection. Money already deducted is credited against the debt rather than refunded.

A creditor blocked from your wages may look at your bank account instead, and what a bank arrestment is in Scotland covers the £1,000 protected balance and the four week objection deadline.