One feature is peculiar to the Debt Arrangement Scheme and is worth knowing before you start. You may propose a payment that is a proportion of your surplus rather than all of it.

Here is where the tool comes from, what goes into it, what you can influence, and what happens once the figure is agreed. Our guide to how the Debt Arrangement Scheme works covers the scheme itself.

It is the standard assessment used across Scotland’s statutory debt solutions. The power sits in section 89 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 and the working rules are regulations 15 to 18 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

Section 89 of the 2016 Act came into force on 30 November 2016, and the same assessment runs through bankruptcy and protected trust deeds as well.

The point of one tool is consistency. Two advisers looking at the same household should reach much the same figure, and a creditor knows the number was not simply chosen.

The chain, which nobody else sets out

The tool reached the Debt Arrangement Scheme through Schedule A1, inserted by the 2014 amendment regulations with effect from 1 April 2015 and substituted by the 2018 amendment regulations with effect from 29 October 2018.

So the tool has governed programme payments since April 2015. The modification that matters most to you, that you may propose a proportion of your whole surplus income rather than all of it, dates from 29 October 2018.

The formula

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on the tool puts it this way: the contribution is the debtor’s whole surplus income in excess of the lower of the debtor’s expenditure, or the trigger figures.

The rule behind that is regulation 15 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016, which is the provision to read rather than the 2014 regulations some guidance still cites.

Trigger figures, and why no honest page prints them

Trigger figures are benchmark amounts for categories of household spending. They are licensed to advisers rather than published openly, so a figure copied from a blog is worth nothing.

Where your spending in a category is below the benchmark, your own figure is used. Where it is above, ask your adviser which benchmark is being applied and what evidence would justify the difference.

Everything coming in, and everything the household reasonably has to spend. The statement of income and expenditure goes into the application itself, in the style and format of the Common Financial Statement.

What your adviser is assembling

Regulation 20(2B) requires the application to contain that statement, a statement that the proposed payments accord with the Common Financial Tool, and any evidence or explanation needed in applying it.

Where the figures are checked

Expect to evidence the income rather than simply state it. The application has to satisfy the DAS Administrator that the proposed payments accord with the tool.

Anything unusual in the budget is worth explaining at the outset. A note from your adviser is one of the matters weighed if the application goes to the fair and reasonable test.

The bills you keep paying

A Debt Payment Programme deals with arrears, not with your future bills. Paying a continuing liability when it falls due is a standard condition, and which debts can and cannot go in sets out the dividing line.

That is why the budget has to be realistic rather than lean. A programme built on a payment you cannot hold is the most common way one fails, which why a programme is revoked covers.

In the Debt Arrangement Scheme, yes. The Accountant in Bankruptcy says that in DAS a debtor may propose a contribution which is a proportion of their whole surplus income.

Why that matters

It is the difference between this scheme and the insolvency routes, where the whole surplus goes to creditors. A proportion leaves headroom for the things a five or six year budget never predicts.

The trade-off is length. A smaller payment against the same debt means more years, and the period a programme will run is itself a factor in the approval decision.

Who has to be persuaded

Not all of them. Since 4 November 2019 a programme for an individual is approved where not less than nine tenths in value of the creditors consent, under regulations 23(1)(a) and 24(1) of the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011.

Below that threshold the DAS Administrator applies the fair and reasonable test, where the tool is the first matter listed. The fair and reasonable test goes through all twelve.

Neither. No minimum monthly contribution appears anywhere in the regulations or in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance, and there is no minimum or maximum debt.

What that means in practice

There is no minimum debt and no maximum. A programme may be approved where it provides for the payment of one or more debts, so a single debt is enough.

So the question is not whether you clear a threshold. It is whether the proposal holds together, and whether there is a minimum debt for the scheme goes into that.

Some context on the numbers

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s 2025-26 statistics put the median monthly contribution at £260, up four per cent on the year before, and the median debt in a Debt Arrangement Scheme at £16,200.

AiB uses the median rather than the mean because the distribution is skewed. Those are figures about other people’s programmes rather than a guide to your own.

Directly. The debt is repaid in full, so the payment and the balance between them set the period, and interest and charges are not adding to it while the programme runs.

What moves the length

No maximum length applies to a programme for an individual. The five-year limit that appears on some pages belongs to Business DAS.

AiB says a programme approved in the last three financial years is expected to last between 5.1 and 6.1 years. Length is one of the matters weighed at regulation 25(2)(b).

A rough illustration, and it is only arithmetic

Take AiB’s two medians for 2025-26 and put them together. A £16,200 debt at £260 a month is around 62 months of payments, which is a little over five years.

That is division rather than a forecast, and it works only because nothing is being added to the balance. Your own figures will move it in either direction.

What the payment is not

The fee comes out of what is distributed to creditors rather than being added to your debt. Your creditors fund the scheme out of what they receive.

You pay one figure and it is split between your creditors, with the fees taken out on the way. How much a Debt Arrangement Scheme costs sets out the two fees.

Within 42 days of approval. That is a standard condition at regulation 27(2)(a), and the period has run from approval rather than application since 2 July 2013.

How the money reaches your creditors

You pay the payments distributor, which splits the money between the creditors in the programme. Regulation 31 allows a payment mandate to an employer or any other method agreed with the distributor.

That list used to be closed and was opened up on 4 November 2019. The DAS Administrator can also approve another method where it makes completion more likely.

The payment instruction to an employer

Regulation 32 lets a deduction be taken from your wages and sent to the distributor. It is voluntary and you can recall it by substituting another approved method.

It is not an earnings arrestment and should not be described as one. The employer deducts the sum specified on every pay day until the instruction is recalled.

You vary it. A material change in your circumstances is a ground for variation at regulation 37(1)(d), and a payment break is available where your disposable income has fallen by half and is expected to stay down for the length of the break.

The routes

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

A payment break is available where your circumstances change, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy puts no limit on how many times you may apply provided you meet the criteria each time.

Varying a programme when your income changes sets out the application, and the payment break rules cover the two different breaks.

What to do first

Keep paying while an application to vary is pending. Missed payments during that window can still put the programme at risk.

You cannot apply on your own. Regulation 20(2)(a) requires the application to be made by a money adviser on the debtor’s behalf.

Our Debt Arrangement Scheme page sets out how we help, whether you need a money adviser explains who qualifies, and how to apply covers the paperwork.