There is a geography problem too. Debt management plans are used across the United Kingdom, so most of what is written about them is written for England and Wales.

And there is a third option most comparisons leave out entirely. How a MAP works covers the formal route on its own.

One is created by statute and the other is not. A Minimal Asset Process is a sequestration under section 2(2) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, and a debt management plan is an agreement with each creditor.

What informal actually means

No creditor has to accept a plan, and no creditor has to stay in one. You are also free to stop at any point, because nothing binds either side.

That freedom cuts both ways. Nothing in a plan prevents a creditor from taking exactly the steps it could have taken without one.

What statutory means

A MAP is awarded by the Accountant in Bankruptcy on a debtor application, your estate vests in AiB as trustee, and the award goes on a public register. The guide for MAP debtors sets out what that involves.

It is not a lighter option than a plan. It is a heavier one that ends on a fixed date.

Both are outside the courts

Neither route involves going to court. A debtor application is decided by the Accountant in Bankruptcy and a plan is negotiated with creditors directly.

That is where the similarity stops. Only one of them stops a creditor going to court itself.

The two side by side

An award of sequestration ends an earnings arrestment. Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 says an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment, a conjoined arrestment order or a deduction from earnings order ceases to have effect on the date of sequestration.

The award does it by operation of law

Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 ends an existing earnings arrestment on the date of sequestration, with no application to anyone and nothing for the creditor to agree to.

Section 72(4) then bars a fresh earnings arrestment for a debt that could be claimed in the sequestration.

Money already deducted is credited against the debt rather than returned, which whether a MAP stops an existing wage arrestment covers.

A plan does nothing to an arrestment

There is no provision to point at, because there is no statute behind a plan. An arrestment already running carries on regardless.

What protects you while you decide

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.

A statutory moratorium is the exception. It does not stop an earnings arrestment that was already running: section 197(5)(d) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 lets a creditor carry on executing an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order that came into effect before the moratorium began.

Only the Minimal Asset Process. Section 145(1) discharges you of the debts you owed at the date of sequestration, and a plan repays the balance in full.

What survives a MAP

Section 145(3) lists what survives. Fines and other court penalties, debts obtained by fraud, and aliment or a periodical allowance payable on divorce are not written off.

Student loans are outside the discharge too, by the separate route of section 145(7). Whether a MAP writes off all your debts sets out the whole list.

What a plan does instead

It reduces the monthly payment rather than the balance. The debt shrinks only as you pay it.

That is not a criticism of plans. For somebody with a real surplus and a defined end point it can be the right answer, and which debt solution is best if you have a wage arrestment compares the options.

There is no fee to apply for Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy. The fee that used to apply was removed on 6 February 2023, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own guidance lists no application fee.

What a MAP costs you

Nothing. There is no application fee, and section 90(4) allows the debtor contribution order to be fixed at zero, which is what happens in every Minimal Asset Process.

Full administration sequestration carries a £150 application fee, and no fee is payable under that item where the debtor receives certain prescribed benefits or is assessed as having no surplus income.

What a plan costs you

Free providers funded by the credit industry exist, and so do firms that take a fee out of each payment. Ask which kind you are speaking to before you agree anything.

Citizens Advice Scotland and National Debtline both give free advice on either route, and no Scottish debt solution requires you to pay a private firm.

Interest is the part people assume wrongly

No creditor is obliged to freeze interest on an informal plan. Where interest continues, a reduced payment can leave the balance barely moving.

Nothing published establishes how often creditors agree to freeze it. Ask each creditor directly and get the answer in writing.

A Minimal Asset Process takes almost everything you owe. A plan normally covers non-priority debts only, and priority debts are dealt with separately.

Debt by debt

Which bills are priority debts in Scotland explains why council tax, rent and energy arrears are treated differently from a credit card.

The debt limit, and the carve-out inside it

Your total debts must be no more than £25,000, under section 2(2)(b) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016.

Student loan debt does not count towards the £25,000 limit. Section 2(2A), which has applied since 29 March 2021, leaves it out of the calculation.

That decides eligibility for a lot of graduates, and which debts count towards the MAP debt limit sets out the provision.

A MAP ends on a fixed date. Section 140(1) discharges you six months after the award, and a plan runs until the balance is cleared.

The MAP timetable

Six months to discharge, then six months of statutory conditions on disclosing your status before borrowing. Twelve months in total.

Which restrictions still apply after a MAP ends sets those conditions out, and they are disclosure duties rather than bans.

A plan has no timetable of its own

Its length is the balance divided by the payment. Where interest continues, that sum can run for a very long time.

What each puts on the record

A MAP goes on the Register of Insolvencies, and mygov.scot states 18 months from the date of bankruptcy for a MAP entry. No statute sets any retention period.

A plan appears on no public register. Individual accounts are still reported by each creditor in the ordinary way, and mygov.scot puts bankruptcy on a credit file at least six years.

Start with the assessment, and then remember there is a third option. In Scotland an informal plan is not the only way to repay in full.

The option most comparisons leave out

A Debt Payment Programme is not an insolvency solution. You repay the debt in full, and what changes is the pressure rather than the balance.

Regulation 33(1)(a) recalls any arrestment of your income or property on approval, and notice of the recall goes to the employer or to whoever is holding the arrested funds.

So a debt payment programme does what an informal plan cannot. What the Debt Arrangement Scheme is explains it, and a MAP against the Debt Arrangement Scheme compares the statutory pair.

Which situation points where

What the numbers say about Scotland

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s annual statistics for 2025-26 record 2,976 sequestrations and 5,288 debt payment programmes approved.

Informal plans appear in neither figure, because they are outside the statutory system altogether. That is the difference in one sentence.

Do not judge either by an English page

Most material about debt management plans is written for England and Wales, where the surrounding enforcement rules are different. Bailiffs, county courts and debt relief orders do not exist here.

Scotland has sheriff officers, the sheriff court and its own statutory solutions. Check that any page you rely on is written for Scotland.

Where to take the decision

An approved money adviser has to be involved in a bankruptcy application in any event. Whether you are eligible for a MAP runs through the eight conditions before you get that far.