That budget is assessed with a prescribed tool, and most content about it names the wrong one. What a protected trust deed is sets out the arrangement the payment sits inside.

Here is the chain from your bank statements to the direct debit, which income counts, what you are allowed to spend, and what happens when the figures move.

Four steps, and each one has a provision behind it. Your figures go on a prescribed form, the expenditure is measured against published trigger figures, the surplus becomes the contribution, and the deed records it.

The chain, link by link

The wording of section 168(1) requires the deed to state that you will pay contributions from income at regular intervals during the payment period, including, for an individual, any contribution required by the common financial tool.

Where the surplus rule actually sits

Section 168(5) is the subsection that applies the whole surplus. It is worth naming precisely, because published summaries frequently attribute the rule to subsection (3), which says something different.

Subsection (3) is the shorter payment period condition and it appears further down this page. Getting the two apart matters if you ever read the Act alongside a trustee’s letter.

Your creditors see the same figures

The Form 2A income and expenditure statement goes out in the creditor pack with the rest of the statement of affairs. AiB also checks that the recorded income and expenditure line up with the trigger figures before registering the deed.

The Common Financial Statement. Regulation 15(1) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 provides that the specified method to be used to assess the debtor’s contribution is the Common Financial Statement.

Why so much content says otherwise

Because Scotland tried to change it and the change never happened. Regulation 15 still names the Common Financial Statement, and there is no made Scottish instrument prescribing the Standard Financial Statement.

The Common Financial Tool (Scotland) Regulations 2018 would have made that switch from 29 October 2018. They were laid as a draft in June 2018 and withdrawn, and a second draft was laid and withdrawn in November 2018.

So a page telling a Scottish reader that their adviser will complete a Standard Financial Statement is describing England and Wales. Say Common Financial Statement, or say the common financial tool, which is the statutory term.

Where the power comes from

The enabling power is section 89 of the 2016 Act, in force 30 November 2016, which lets Ministers specify a method to assess an appropriate amount of a living debtor’s income and provides that it is to be known as the common financial tool.

AiB administers the tool itself, and its Common Financial Tool page records that the current version of the trigger figures was published on 1 April 2025.

Almost all of it is taken into account, but some of it cannot fund the payment. Contributions cannot be drawn from Universal Credit, Social Security Scotland benefits or tax credits.

Counted, and counted for what

Section 181 also provides that contributions exclude income derived from social security benefits. Those payments are still relevant to the assessment, because they show whether other income exists to contribute from.

The rule that matters most if you are on benefits

Regulation 15(7) is short and it is a rule rather than a discretion: if the debtor has income solely from social security benefits and tax credits, no contribution is due. The Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 apply the same tool across sequestration, protected trust deeds and the Debt Arrangement Scheme.

It does not reach an earnings arrestment, which runs on a different regime with fixed bands. That is worth keeping apart from the trust deed calculation.

Money from someone else

Where a third party offers to pay, the trustee must tell creditors, say whether the arrangement is legally binding, warn that non-contractual payments cannot be guaranteed, and name the payer. Trustees should not accept payments from someone who is in a debt solution of their own.

Reasonable living costs, measured against trigger figures rather than picked at random. A trigger figure is a threshold that invites an explanation, not an allowance and not an automatic refusal.

How the comparison works

Regulation 15(2) makes the contribution your surplus above the lower of the trigger figure for that category or your actual expenditure in it.

So spending less than the trigger figure does not hand you the difference. Spending more is where the conversation starts.

The categories, and the one gap in them

• Telephone costs.
• Travel costs.
• Housekeeping.
• Other costs.

Rent and mortgage carry no trigger figure at all, because housing costs vary too much between households. The figures themselves are published by the Money Advice Trust under licence to advisers rather than on an open page, so AiB’s own description of the tool is where to look for how they are used.

Going above a trigger figure

Regulation 15(3) expressly allows a trust deed trustee to allow expenditure above the trigger figures where satisfied that the expenditure is reasonable. Regulation 15(4) puts the onus on you to provide evidence of why it is reasonable if asked.

• Take three months of bank statements to the assessment rather than an estimate.
• Flag anything unusual, such as a disability related cost or a long commute, and bring the evidence with you.
• Include the bills that stay outside the deed, because current council tax, rent, mortgage, utilities and insurance still have to be paid.
• Do not squeeze the budget to make the figure look affordable, because a contribution you cannot sustain helps nobody.

The contingency amount

Regulation 15(3) also requires that you are left something for contingencies, and regulation 16(1) caps it at up to 10% of the assessed contribution, subject to a maximum of £4.62 a week, £9.23 a fortnight or £20 a month.

Those figures are as made in the 2016 Regulations and carry no amendment marker. Regulation 16(2) requires the retained amount to be treated as an item of expenditure on the form.

There is no minimum figure in the statute, and there is a statutory ceiling on the total. Section 168(4) requires an individual’s contributions across the payment period to total less than the total debt including interest at the date of granting.

What the ceiling means in practice

AiB will not register a deed where the projected contributions would repay everything with interest. Section 168 therefore builds in a guarantee that a trust deed does not repay the debt in full out of income.

If you could pay in full, the Debt Arrangement Scheme is the route that avoids insolvency altogether. Our Debt Arrangement Scheme page sets out how it works.

The floors built into section 89

Section 89(3) requires the reasonable expenditure allowed for you to be no less than any guaranteed minimum pension income. Sections 89(4) and (5) require an allowance for aliment, for a periodical allowance to a former spouse or civil partner, and for child support maintenance.

Section 89(6) adds the caveat that the allowance need not be enough to comply with a subsisting order or agreement. If you pay maintenance under a court order, raise it at the first meeting.

Forty-eight months from the date the trust deed is granted, under section 168(2)(a). It can be shorter only in one narrow case, and longer in two.

The payment period rules

Read the shorter-period condition carefully. Section 168(3) allows it only where payment, from income or otherwise, would allow distribution to meet the debts in full, and in full means in full.

Ending the payments is not ending the trust

The trust continues until realisation and distribution are complete and the trustee obtains their own discharge from creditors on Form 6 under section 186. How long a trust deed lasts in Scotland sets out the difference.

A section 175 agreement about heritable property can also require monthly payments for a period following the payment period. What happens to the equity in your home in a trust deed covers that.

Your trustee reassesses at least once a year, and the contribution moves in either direction. There is no statutory payment break in a protected trust deed, and the relief that does exist is an extension of the payment period.

The review

AiB’s guidance requires the trustee to reassess the financial position annually, and says the contribution should be adjusted where income rises or expenditure falls.

A material change may warrant modifying the contribution or the timeframe, and section 180 requires AiB to be notified of a change to the payment period. What happens if you get a pay rise during a trust deed covers a rise in detail.

The payment break people have heard about

The statutory six month break, available once where disposable income falls by at least half, belongs to a Debtor Contribution Order in bankruptcy. It is not carried across into Part 14.

In a trust deed the equivalent is an extension under section 168(2)(c), agreed with the trustee and notified to AiB. Ask early, in writing, and keep the evidence of why.

Two missed payments in a row

After two consecutive missed contributions, section 174 lets the trustee request that you instruct your employer to deduct the contribution and remit it, and to give that instruction directly if you do not.

One missed payment is not the trigger, and the first move is a request to you rather than a letter to your employer. What happens if you miss a payment on your trust deed sets out the whole escalation.