CPI and CPPI exam success for ISS Training students

ISS Training is delighted to congratulate its CPI and CPPI students on their success in the June 2018 CPI and CPPI exam sitting.  Our students achieved great results, including one distinction and three merits, and we are thrilled that all of their hard work paid off.  Well done, class of 2018!

Enrolment for the 2019 session is now open. For full details of the classes and dates for CPI click here and for CPPI click here.

If you would like to discuss your options, please speak to us at any time on 0845 601 7570 or [email protected]

Announcement regarding Insolvency Support Services (ISS)       

Please note that with effect from 1 July 2018, the business of Insolvency Support Services under the business lines ISS Training, ISS Compliance, ISS Outsourcing and ISS Practice Support has transferred to a new limited company SC601201.  The company previously registered as Insolvency Support Services Limited (SC357810) has changed its name to Dunedin Advisory Limited.

Dunedin Advisory retains responsibility for the Accountant in Bankruptcy contract and remains as a provider of outsourced bankruptcy services.  Formal appointments in the name of Christine Convy and Jenn Stewart, and court reporting duties remain with Dunedin Advisory Limited.  Enquiries regarding any case matters previously dealt with by Insolvency Support Services Limited should now be directed to Dunedin Advisory, contact details for which can be found at https://dunedinadvisory.com

Insolvency Support Services Limited’s new details are as follows:

Registered address: 12 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2DP

Registered number: SC601201

Director: Eileen Maclean

VAT number: 299 2513 64

Customers

All contracts for training services have been assigned to Insolvency Support Services and will be honoured as contracted.   Any sums paid in advance for course bookings made before 1 July 2018 have been transferred to the new company in full.  Cancellation terms and all other terms and conditions of booking are unchanged.

Customers will be contacted individually with details of our new bank account for payments in respect of bookings made on or after 1 July 2018.

Suppliers

All invoices in relation to supplies to Insolvency Support Services Limited from 1 July 2018 onwards should be addressed to:

Insolvency Support Services Limited

12 Castle Terrace

Edinburgh

EH1 2PD

and submitted electronically via [email protected].  Standard payment terms are 30 days, unless otherwise agreed.

Continuity of Service

The team at ISS will continue to provide the same breadth and high standards of training, compliance, outsourcing and practice management services that you have come to expect.  We look forward to working with our valued existing customers and new contacts.

If you would like any further information, please contact Eileen Maclean at [email protected] or on 07957 600538.

Are you geared up for your GDPR responsibilities?

Alison Curry reviews the requirements for IPs under Europe’s biggest change to data protection in more than two decades.

Any substantive change to business legislation requires insolvency practitioners to take a dual approach: we must consider both our own business responsibilities and make sure that the legislation permeates our approach to insolvency appointments. And so it is with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What does GDPR do?

The data processing regime exists to ensure that the data privacy of EU citizens is protected. It imposes strict safeguards on the use of personal data by businesses and even higher duties where that data is particularly sensitive (or ‘special category’ as it is now called).

Jargon busting

Personal data is classified as any information from which a natural person can be identified directly or indirectly; so the application of GDPR is broad. It includes, for example, the names and addresses of individual creditors, the pay details of employees and the personal details of a company’s directors.

The definition of data processing is similarly wide and includes (among other things) the collection, organisation, storage, alteration, retrieval, use, dissemination and, perhaps most surprisingly, destruction of data.

A data controller is any natural or legal person that determines the purposes and means of processing personal data. That will necessarily include an insolvency practitioner in respect of personal data contained in their case files.

A data processor is a natural or legal person that processes personal data on behalf of a controller. So if you instruct an Employment Rights Act claims handler, for instance, they are likely to be a data processor.

Any processing of the personal data, whether by data controller or data processor, must comply with GDPR. Both data controllers and processors may be joint and severally liable in the case of any breach.

Legal bases

It is a requirement that data may only be processed where one or more of the specified legal bases apply, and these must be specified in advance of the processing commencing. You can specify more than one legal basis, but you cannot change the stated basis of processing once it has been defined.

What do I need to do?

GDPR requires organisations to demonstrate compliance with the principles set out in the legislation. In essence, businesses must demonstrate that the data is: needed; relevant and accurate; held securely and only for as long as is necessary; how and why it is held; and that it is only shared as necessary.

Your business must document what personal data it holds, on what basis and in what capacity, and by whom it will be processed. As a minimum, you will need a data processing register, register of data processors and a data breach register, though ideally, you should consider documented policies to deal with data security and breaches, retention and destruction, subject access requests and processor oversight. If you process sensitive (special category) data, which is likely to be the case, you must also have a documented policy describing your processing.

You must make available privacy notices that are relevant to the various categories of data subjects you encounter (business contacts, advice clients, personal insolvency clients, directors, shareholders, staff members etc), setting out your approach to personal data handing.

GDPR upon appointment

Prior to and upon appointment, you must understand and assess the risks that GDPR presents. Your checklists or work programmes should document GDPR considerations and their potential impact and you should be able to demonstrate that the entity’s current GDPR approach has been assessed, any risks are identified and, wherever possible, minimised.

If the entity’s personal data processing will continue post-appointment, you will need to assess the GDPR risks and ensure that the entity has in place the necessary consents and appropriate controls and policies surrounding its data processing.

If personal data is likely to be transferred as part of a going concern sale, you should check whether that data is transferable and whether consent to transfer has been given or is required, with the benefit of legal advice.

Existing cases

Data subjects may be notified of changes to the relevant privacy policy by way of a link to your website on the next opportunity for communication. It seems you do not need to contact individual data subjects in closed cases, however, you should consider how you will deal with any subject access requests relating to these appointments and satisfy yourself that personal data is securely stored.

Assistance

There is lots of generic advice out there, but little if any of that is insolvency-specific. That’s where we can help. We have designed policy documents for insolvency practitioners, a GDPR checklist for use on appointments and sample privacy notices for the different categories of people that insolvency practitioners will encounter. Our full suite of GDPR documents is available for £1,850 (plus VAT). We can also provide Data Protection Impact Assessment screening, in-house training and support staff training and induction. If you would like to know more about how we can tailor our services to help you meet your GDPR obligations, please contact Alison Curry at [email protected].

 

Alison Curry is a licensed insolvency practitioner at Insolvency Support Services Ltd, with over 20 years of practice experience, including six years as head of regulatory standards at the Insolvency Practitioners Association.

This article first appeared in Recovery News, the newsletter of R3, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals.

GDPR: practical support for IPs – supporting your business and issues on appointment

One of our recent webinars considered the forthcoming provisions of GDPR and the practical implications for IPs, in terms of our own businesses and those of the insolvent entities to which we are appointed. There is lots of generic advice out there, but little if any that is insolvency-specific. That’s where we can help.

We are designing policy and process documents for insolvency practitioners, a GDPR checklist for use on appointments and sample privacy notices for the different categories of people that insolvency practitioners will encounter. We can also provide bespoke webinars to support regular staff training and induction.

If you would like to know more about how we can help you meet your data processing obligations, please contact Alison Curry at [email protected]

We can offer several options to help meet your specific needs:

  • GDPR checklist on Insolvency Appointment: priced at £500 plus VAT
  • Package of Sample Privacy Notices: priced at £750 plus VAT
    o Employees
    o Directors, shareholders and owners
    o Debtor clients
    o Creditors, book debtors and employees of insolvent entities
    o Marketing and Contacts
  • Package of Sample Policies and Registers: priced at £750 plus VAT
    o Data Processing Registers for Insolvency Practices
    o Data Breach Register
    o Sample Policies:
    – Employees (IP practice staff)
    – Confidentiality and Data Security
    – Special Category Data
    – Data Security Breach
    – Data Retention and Destruction
    – Subject Access Requests
    – Vulnerable Clients

Or purchase the complete package for £1,850 plus VAT

We can also offer bespoke webinars to support regular staff training and induction from £750 plus VAT.

Please contact Alison Curry at [email protected] to discuss your requirements.

And don’t forget that our GDPR webinar: A practical approach to GDPR for IPs is still available for £50 plus VAT per view. Contact [email protected] to register.

Extensive new training programme for 2018

We are delighted to launch our comprehensive new directory of courses for 2018.

As always, our programme includes brand new courses, perennial favourites, and exam training.

ISS Training Team expands across UK

Our training team has expanded, with Eileen Maclean joined by Alison Curry. Specialising in insolvency law and regulation in England & Wales, Alison will be leading our course offering for IPs south of the border.

Guest Speakers

We have invited several well-respected guest speakers from the worlds of tax, VAT and law to join us on some of our courses to provide complementary expertise and perspective. And we have again teamed up with experts in the fields of marketing and professional development to give you wider, relevant learning and development opportunities.

One Hour Series

These short online courses proved incredibly popular when we introduced them in 2017. Have a look at our full programme of webinars, presented in three series: Technical Shorts; Business Insolvency and Protecting Your Licence. There are 16 to choose from in total.

Locations

We train across the UK, with courses in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds and London.

Bespoke Training

We also offer bespoke in-house training, tailored to the specific requirements of your organisation. Clients find this especially valuable when they have a business need, require a confidential environment for training or have a team they wish to develop. All our open courses can be run as bespoke, or speak to us about designing a programme to match your needs.

 

To find out more, visit https://www.insolvencysupportservices.com/iss-training and to book places on any courses speak to Danielle Kelly on 0845 601 7570 or email [email protected]

Alison Curry, former Head of Regulatory Standards at the IPA, joins Insolvency Support Services

 

We are delighted to announce that senior industry professional Alison Curry has joined Insolvency Support Services (ISS) as a Director in a move that expands our services across the UK.

Alison is very well-known for her work on developing regulatory standards during her time as Head of Regulatory Standards at the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) and the numerous courses and events at which she delivered informative presentations to IPA members and the broader profession.

Specialising in insolvency law and regulation in England and Wales, Alison has a proven track record of regulatory drafting, project management and implementation of organisational change.

Alison commented: “I am delighted to be joining the team at ISS. This is an exciting opportunity to extend the highly regarded ISS offering across the UK, in all ISS service lines: Training, Outsourcing, Practice Support and Compliance. My experience with the Insolvency (England & Wales) Rules 2016 will also assist in our helping practitioners assimilate the similar changes which are due to take place in Scotland.”

Based in the South East of England, Alison will be delivering training and client support throughout the UK. Her first training course, a New SIPs Update 2018 webinar, will take place on Friday 16 February. This will be followed by a brand new IVA Masterclass, which she will be running in Glasgow on 14 March.

Eileen Maclean, Executive Director of ISS, said: “Alison’s appointment adds further depth to our growing team, enabling us to service increasing client demand across the UK, and supports our aim of being the UK’s centre of excellence for insolvency support services.“

Alison can be contacted at [email protected] or on 01592 323460

For more information about the New SIPs Update 2018 webinar and IVA Masterclass and to book, please call 0845 601 7570 or email [email protected]

 

Technical note: state pension

We were asked recently whether, if a debtor is at state pension age but is still working and therefore obtaining an income, they have to claim their state pension because they are eligible for it, or are they able to defer claiming it until after they have finished working?

The answer is yes, they can defer.  Guidance can be found at www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension

When the individual does eventually claim they can get the missed payments back as higher weekly payments or a one-off lump sum.

It is our view, particularly as state pension isn’t paid automatically – you have to actively claim it, that in line with the guidance provided by Horton v Henry, the Trustee would be unable to compel the debtor to claim their pension if they choose not to.

New Scottish Bankruptcy Book

Published at the end of last year, this new text takes the place of the classic work of McBryde on Bankruptcy. Authored by Donna McKenzie-Skene, this book is the most up-to-date work on bankruptcy in Scotland. You can buy your copy here: http://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/Catalogue/ProductDetails.aspx?productid=715523&recordid=7095

Awards shortlist success for Insolvency Support Services

Insolvency Support Services has been shortlisted in the Best Leadership of a Mould-Breaking Firm category at the prestigious Managing Partners’ Forum Awards for Management Excellence 2018.

 

The MPF Awards recognise excellence and best practice across the professional services sector, including the accountancy, legal and consulting professions, and attract entries from firms across Europe.

 

Insolvency Support Services is one of only two Scottish-headquartered firms to have achieved a place on the shortlist, with law firm Brodies up for the Best Implementation of Systems or Technology award.

 

Having identified a gap in the market to offer a uniquely complete range of support services (outsourcing, practice management, compliance and training) to insolvency and related businesses, founding director Eileen Maclean established Insolvency Support Services in 2009. The business has  since become a centre of excellence and pre-eminent supplier of support services to the UK insolvency market.

 

Eileen Maclean commented: “Being shortlisted in the MPF Awards is very much appreciated recognition of our success in creating a mould-breaking service and building a highly respected UK-wide business in a short space of time. We would like to thank all our clients for their invaluable support, and our amazing team for their hard work and commitment.”

 

The winners of the MPF Awards will be announced at a gala dinner and ceremony in London on 7 March.