As soon as you know, rather than after the first missed payment. The annual review is a backstop and not the only moment the figure can move.

What to report and how quickly

The same rule at CONC 8.8.1 requires a statement at the start of the plan and at least annually, and you can ask for one at any reasonable time.

Why early beats accurate

You do not need final figures to make the call. Telling a provider that hours have been cut is enough to start the review.

The alternative is a failed collection, which reaches your creditors as a missed payment instead of as a revised offer.

Good news counts as a change too

A pay rise, a bonus or an inheritance changes the advice you should be getting, not only the monthly figure. Tell your provider about those as well.

A lump sum is a separate conversation, and paying off a plan early covers what to ask before any of it is paid out.

And do not go quiet

A provider that hears nothing may close the plan, and StepChange’s client agreement is clear that creditors keep their rights whatever the arrangement says.

You redo the budget, your provider sends the revised figures to your creditors, and the new payment starts from the next collection.

The steps in order

Which budget information you need lists the paperwork, and it is the same exercise as at the start rather than a different one.

What the budget has to allow for

Ongoing rent, mortgage, council tax and energy come out in full before any surplus exists. Priority arrears are dealt with before the plan as well.

Include the costs that arrive occasionally. A budget with no room in it produces a payment that fails again in three months.

How long it takes

The budget can usually be redone in one appointment. What takes longer is waiting to hear back from each creditor.

Ask when the new figure takes effect, whether it starts before the creditors have replied, and what happens to this month’s collection. All three are worth knowing before the date passes.

Creditors do not have to agree the new figure

No creditor has to accept a debt management plan, and nothing requires one to give a reason for refusing.

National Debtline’s Scottish guidance describes the same exercise you did at the start: household income, less essential costs, with what is left available for the debts.

That document is what does the persuading. No creditor is obliged to be persuaded by it.

The payment usually goes up too, once the extra costs that came with the change are allowed for. The plan then finishes sooner.

Tell your provider before the money is committed

A rise absorbed into other spending is difficult to explain later. Say what has changed and let the budget decide what is available.

It is not the whole rise

A new job with a longer commute costs money to hold down. The budget takes the increased costs into account before the surplus is recalculated.

Every extra pound comes off the balance once interest is frozen, which how long a plan lasts explains.

Interest is worth revisiting at the same time

A creditor that refused a freeze earlier can be asked again on the new figures. CONC 7.3.4 is a rule requiring forbearance, and the interest example sits in CONC 7.3.5, which is guidance.

Tell them anyway

Hiding a rise is a poor strategy in an arrangement built on an honest budget. It also gives a creditor a reason to walk away from a freeze it agreed.

A windfall changes the question

An inheritance or a redundancy payment can be large enough to change the whole route rather than the payment. Take advice before spending or offering any of it.

It depends who your provider is. StepChange’s client guidance says it is not possible to get a payment break on one of its plans.

What is offered instead

StepChange offers a reduced payment, or a different solution being recommended, and says creditors will be told why a payment could not be made.

Other providers may take a different approach, so ask yours rather than assuming. Whether you can take a payment break goes through what is known.

Ask what happens to the interest position

A creditor that agreed to freeze interest may revisit it if payments stop entirely. That is another reason a reduced payment is safer than a pause.

A reduced payment is usually the better ask

A payment that reflects the new budget is easier for a creditor to accept than a pause. It also keeps something reaching the balances.

Do not simply cancel the direct debit

A payment that fails without warning reaches your creditors as a default rather than as a request. Ring the provider first, even if the money has already gone.

The Scottish comparison

Under the Debt Arrangement Scheme a payment break is a statutory possibility, and regulation 37 makes a material change in the circumstances of a debtor a ground for varying a programme.

Your creditors go back to their contractual and legal remedies. Nothing about a plan stops them, whether it is running or not.

The Scottish enforcement point

A creditor with decree can instruct sheriff officers, and whether creditors can still take court action sets out the sequence in Scottish terms.

An earnings arrestment takes what the tables in Schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 say, as substituted by SSI 2024/293 from 6 April 2025, and there is no affordability test in it at all.

And the plan itself may be closed

A provider that hears nothing for months may end the arrangement and return the accounts to your creditors. Nothing about that requires a court either.

Which is why a smaller payment beats no payment

A deduction set by statute takes no account of your budget. How much they can take from your wages shows what that means in pounds.

Payments already made are not wasted

Money already paid into the plan has reduced the balances it reached. Nothing about stopping reverses that, and nothing already paid comes back to you either.

If you want to end the plan altogether

You can, and whether you can cancel a plan at any time covers how to do it properly rather than by stopping the direct debit.

An informal plan is the most flexible and the least protected. A statutory programme is less immediate and carries protection while it runs.

The trade-off in one line

Speed on one side, protection on the other. Which matters more depends on how close any of your creditors is to enforcement.

Side by side

A material change in the circumstances of a debtor is a ground for varying the programme, under regulation 37(1)(d).

The difference between the two routes sets out everything else that changes with them.

What flexibility does not buy

A payment you can change at will is still a payment nobody has to accept. The trade is real and it runs in both directions.

Being able to move the figure quickly is the real advantage of an informal arrangement. It is also the reason nothing about it binds a creditor.

When the new surplus cannot clear the debts in a sensible time, or when priority debts have become most of the problem.

The signs

• A revised payment that barely covers the interest still being charged.
• A projected end date that keeps moving further away.
• Council tax arrears or a summary warrant in the picture.
• A charge for payment, or money already leaving your wages.

What to do about it

Ask a money adviser to compare the routes on your new figures. When to move to a statutory solution sets out the decision, and whether a plan stops a wage arrestment covers the part a plan cannot do.

Free advice is available from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland, and National Debtline’s Scottish guide is written for this jurisdiction.

Do the comparison on the new figures

The route that fitted last year may not fit this one. A surplus that has halved changes which solution finishes the job.

And there is no penalty for asking

Reviewing the route costs nothing and commits you to nothing. What a debt management plan is is the place to start from again.