The requirement is a safeguard rather than an obstacle. A programme binds creditors and stops enforcement, and how the Debt Arrangement Scheme works sets out how much turns on the figures being right.

The good news is the cost. An individual application is free, approved advisers work in Citizens Advice bureaux and council money advice teams, and our Debt Arrangement Scheme page sets out how we help.

Because an approved programme has legal effects on other people’s money. Once it is approved creditors cannot charge interest, cannot serve a charge for payment and cannot use diligence.

Where the requirement actually sits

Regulation 20(2)(a) is the provision to look at. It requires the application to be made by a money adviser on the debtor’s behalf, in the prescribed form.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance for money advisers sets out what an adviser must do before submitting anything, and applications go through eDEN, its electronic system.

The practical reason

Getting the surplus income figure wrong sets a programme up to fail. A programme that collapses two years in leaves you worse off than when you started, because the frozen interest comes back.

That is why the assessment matters more than the paperwork. How the payment is calculated goes through the tool your adviser has to use.

Do you have to sign it yourself?

Not necessarily. Regulation 20(2)(b) makes an application competent without your signature where it contains the adviser’s declaration that you were given appropriate advice and consented to proceed without signing.

That declaration is the adviser putting their name to the advice you received. It also removes a barrier for people dealing with an adviser by phone.

What it does not do is make the adviser optional. The declaration replaces your signature, not the requirement that the application be made by an adviser, and the conditions the Accountant in Bankruptcy checks apply either way.

Five groups, and most of them are free. Insolvency practitioners and their delegated staff, advisers in organisations accredited at Type 2 level or above, Citizens Advice bureau advisers, and local authority money advisers.

The categories, and what each usually costs

The DAS Administrator may also approve others who have completed the prescribed training and are fit and proper persons. Citizens Advice Scotland and National Debtline both publish their own guides to the scheme.

A private firm is not automatically the wrong answer

A commercial adviser can be perfectly good. What you are entitled to do is ask directly what the firm charges, for what, and how it is paid.

Ask too whether the firm you are speaking to is the one that will submit the application. The name on the advert is not always the name on the form.

For an individual application there is no fee to you and no adviser should suggest otherwise. Whether to use a free debt charity or a paid adviser covers that choice across every solution.

Four things before the application and a running job afterwards. They discuss every option, assess your income, submit the application and nominate a payments distributor.

The job, stage by stage

Debt evidence has to be recent, and supporting documentation should be no more than four weeks old when the application is submitted. How the application is made runs through the sequence.

The one power that sits with your adviser

Under regulation 39A your adviser can approve a short term financial crisis payment break of up to one month, without creditor consent. It cannot be approved more than twice in any 12-month period.

The longer six-month break is a variation decided by the DAS Administrator. How payment breaks work separates the two.

What you have to tell them

You must report a material change of circumstances within seven days of becoming aware of it. You must also provide information about your income, assets or liabilities within 10 days of a written request.

Since 4 November 2019 a money adviser may not charge an individual a fee for Debt Arrangement Scheme work, under regulation 12(2) as substituted by SSI 2019/315.

Where the scheme’s money comes from

The costs fall on creditors. A 20 per cent payments distributor fee and a 2 per cent DAS Administrator fee come out of the sums due to creditors in each distribution, both set out in SSI 2019/315 for programmes applied for from 4 November 2019.

A payments distributor may make no charge of any kind to a debtor. What a payments distributor does and what the scheme costs set out the whole fee structure.

Business DAS works differently

A Business DAS application has to come from an approved money adviser who is also an insolvency practitioner. Business Debtline warns that insolvency practitioners will usually charge a fee for submitting one, and that those fees cannot be included in the programme.

Business DAS is for a legal person, trust or unincorporated body. A sole trader uses the ordinary scheme.

Your local Citizens Advice bureau and your council’s money advice team both employ approved money advisers, and both are free. National charities can also point you to one able to submit an application.

Say early if enforcement has already started

Tell the adviser at the first contact if money is already coming out of your wages or your bank account. That usually changes the order things happen in, because the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on the moratorium treats protection as the first step.

A statutory moratorium lasts six months. The period was six weeks until section 23(2) of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 substituted six months in section 198 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, with effect from 1 October 2022.

One thing that moratorium does not do is stop a deduction already running. How to apply for a statutory moratorium covers what it does and does not reach.

What to take to the first appointment

Gathering it early is time well spent. Whether you qualify for the scheme sets out the conditions your adviser will be checking.

The programme carries on. Your adviser is expected to help you find a replacement before resigning, and the payments distributor keeps collecting and distributing in the meantime.

Your own duty in that situation

Regulation 27(2)(k) requires you to notify the DAS Administrator as soon as reasonably practicable where an adviser ceases to act for any reason other than resignation, or the revocation or suspension of their approval.

Advice agencies lose funding and staff move on, so this is not unusual. What matters is that the Administrator knows and that your payments do not stop.

You can also ask to change adviser without waiting for one to resign. There is nothing to stop you moving to a free agency partway through.

Your reporting duties do not pause

The standard conditions in regulation 27 keep running whether or not you currently have an adviser. Why a programme gets revoked sets out what happens if they are not met.

You ask the DAS Administrator to review the decision first. Only once that review is decided does an appeal lie to the sheriff, under regulation 47C.

Two stages, each with its own 14 days

The application for review must be in writing and made within 14 days of intimation of the determination. The DAS Administrator must review it within 28 days.

The appeal to the sheriff is on a point of law, by summary application, and must be lodged within 14 days of intimation of the review decision. The sheriff’s decision is final.

Note the order. There is no direct appeal against the original determination, so the review has to be used first, and the application for it must be made in writing within 14 days.

Getting a second opinion first

Nothing stops you asking another free adviser to look at the figures before you commit. What free debt advice is available in Scotland lists where to go.

For programmes approved in the last three financial years the Accountant in Bankruptcy expects between 5.1 and 6.1 years, so an extra week spent on the assessment is not wasted.

A creditor can seek a review too, which is worth knowing if yours objected. Whether all your creditors have to agree explains where consent fits.