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The 2005 results for personal consumer debt reveal that over the course of the year, 18,461 County Court Judgements (CCJs) were made in Lancashire for personal debt for sums amounting to over £39m. The average value of CCJs in the broader Lancashire area was £2,118, somewhat higher than the national average of £1,961.
The (External) Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published data on unmanaged consumer debt based on County Court Judgements (CCJs) for all districts and Middle Layer Super Output areas (MSOAs) in England and Wales for 2003, 2004 and 2005. This article focuses on the Lancashire area results for 2005.
A Judgement is the legal name for a record showing that an individual or organisation has been taken to court for the recovery of money. Information is provided on both the number of CCJs and the amount of debt involved. In all cases the figures refer to judgements taken out against individuals for outstanding debts of £1 or more. (Note: debts relating to individual businesses or commercial concerns have been excluded from the dataset). Also, in 2005, the DVLA made new use of CCJs for pursuing road tax evaders. Full downloads of all the data by MSOA for England and Wales are available from Office for National Statistics website
CCJs are thought to provide a good indicator of overall patterns of debt at the local level. Information on such indebtedness can be used by policy makers to facilitate the understanding of problems associated with deprivation and social exclusion. However, it should be recognised that they do not necessarily provide a comprehensive record as obtaining a CCJ against a debtor is only one of the remedies available to those who are owned money. CCJs may also include some people who are able, but who choose not to pay their debt. Moreover, creditors' practices vary and some utilities or businesses may seek CCJs as a remedy more than others who may consider that civil court enforcement is less effective than say, the outsourcing of debt recovery to a third party.
The growth of consumer expenditure had been a key economic driver over recent years helping to underpin a large slice of economic growth. Much of this expenditure was financed by higher borrowing such that personal consumer debt across the UK has risen to unprecedented levels. It is estimated by (External) Credit Action , a national money education charity, that at the end of September 2008 personal consumer debt stood at £1,457bn spread across cards, mortgages and loans. Average household debt in the UK was £59,715 (including mortgages).
"If anyone fails to meet a claim for debt, [he shall] sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labour"
– the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi
The average value of County Court Judgements for Personal Consumer Debt across the broader Lancashire area 2005 was higher than the England and Wales figure. Over the course of the year 18,461 CCJs were made in Lancashire for personal debt for sums amounting to over £39m. The average value of CCJs in the broader Lancashire area was £2,118, somewhat higher than the national average of £1,961 (Table 1).
By district within the sub-region a more complicated pattern emerges. The number of CCJs ranged from a high of 2,452 in Blackpool Unitary Authority (total value £5.2m) to just £413 in the predominantly rural Ribble Valley District (total value £1m).
The average value of a CCJ at the local authority level in Lancashire ranged between £2,759 in Chorley to £1,615 in Lancaster. The figure for Chorley was the 38th highest out of 376 local authorities covering England and Wales. Perhaps not surprisingly, the City of London recorded the largest average £9,503, which was far in excess of Westminster in second position with £4,398.
In comparison to the Index of Multiple Deprivation.asp and the figures for personal incomes personal incomes it would appear that there is some tendency for the average value of CCJs to be higher in the wealthier areas of the county although this is not the case for all authorities.
The Small Area Statistics section of this website contains a large amount of complementary information down to wards and middle- and lower-layer super output areas .
The top and bottom ranked Lancashire MSOAs in terms of the number of CCJs per thousand population are shown in Table 2. The distribution of MSOAs with high average CCJ values reveals that they are generally in the more affluent areas of the county, and low average values are more common in less affluent inner urban areas of Lancashire.
Figure 3 clearly shows where the higher values are located in the county. Large sections of rural areas in Ribble Valley, West Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley and Fylde districts are in the highest quintile for consumer debt.
Figure 1 Average Value of County Court Judgements for Personal Consumer Debt, 2005Map showing the average value of a county court judgement in Lancashire's middle-layer super output areas Source ONS - County Court Judgements - Personal Consumer Debt
This page was compiled by Bryan Moulding .
All enquiries from the media should be sent to Corporate.Communications@lancashire.gov.uk .
Any other questions about the content of this page may be sent to EconInfo@lancashire.gov.uk .
For all enquiries about the county council's services , contact the Customer Service Centre on 0845 0530000 (01772 530000) or at Enquiries@css.lancscc.gov.uk .
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