Record numbers of Scottish firms are going bust

Scottish companies are continuing to go bust in record numbers, according to official statistics published yesterday, as a “never-ending period of recession” takes its toll on the private sector.

A total of 385 business went to the wall in the three months to 31 March, a 31 per cent rise year-on-year and a 38 per cent jump compared with the final three months of 2011.

Bryan Jackson, a corporate recovery partner at accountancy firm PKF, said: “These figures show the real state of the Scottish economy. Companies are simply having to close down as they cannot see an end to the economic gloom.”

He added: “The news that the UK economy has fallen into a double-dip recession is unlikely to surprise any of the business owners who have gone bust in the first three months of this year.

“Many of them may have wondered whether we were ever really out of the recession.

“What this means is the Scottish economy has some way to go before we start to see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Last year’s record number of corporate failures unfortunately looks like being beaten by this year’s figures.”

Iain Fraser, a Scottish member of R3, the trade body for insolvency practitioners, added: “We will continue to see very high corporate failure rates within the retail, construction and hospitality sectors as the economy bumps along the bottom of, what appears to be, a never-ending period of recession.”