The statutory restructuring plan mechanism, introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, introduced a flexible, court-sanctioned tool to rescue financially distressed businesses. The take-up in England and Wales has been widespread, with several well-known names having plans approved. However, despite being available since summer 2020, Scottish restructuring plans remain remarkably rare.
As of April 2026, official statistics from the UK Government record only three restructuring plans in Scotland registered under CIGA between 26 June 2020 and 28 February 2026[1]. This is in contrast to the figures for England and Wales which show a total of 57 restructuring plans over the same period (with 22 being registered in 2025 alone).
Dobbies Garden Centres - the first reported decision from the Scottish Courts
It had been thought that a major factor in the slow uptake of restructuring plans in Scotland was the absence of Scottish precedent as, until recently, there was almost no case law to guide practitioners which caused doubt over how the process would work in Scotland.
That changed with the sanction of the Dobbies' restructuring plan in December 2024. When sanctioning the plan, the court issued a fully reasoned decision which provided clarity on how the Scottish courts will consider matters such as treatment of creditor classes, the relevant alternative, fairness test and the cross-class cram down (which, in the case of the Dobbies' plan, was allowed).
It had been hoped that this comprehensive opinion would be a game-changer: providing restructuring professionals with clarity on how the Scottish courts will apply the legislative framework, reducing uncertainty and legal risk about cross-class cram down in a Scottish context, and therefore making restructuring plans more attractive. Yet even now, with that precedent in place for over a year, the overall number of plans proposed in Scotland remains very small.
Why restructuring plans remain rare in Scotland
Several factors may help explain the reluctance of Scottish companies (and their advisers) to adopt restructuring plans:
Complexity and cost
The process is court-based, requires convening multiple classes of creditors, preparing explanatory statements, legal and valuation advice, often expert evidence, and involves considerable court and administrative costs. For many companies, particularly smaller or medium-sized enterprises, those overheads will often outweigh the expected benefit and may mean that the company simply runs out of money (and therefore time) before a restructuring plan can be sanctioned.
Role of the Court Reporter
The Scottish Courts have made it clear that they expect a Court Reporter to be involved in the Restructuring plan process. The Reporter is a court-appointed professional (typically a solicitor operating in private practice but may also be an accountant) who is there to report to the court on whether the requirements of the legislation and court process have been followed. The costs of the Court Reporter are met by the company which proposes the restructuring plan and is therefore an important consideration for companies considering plans. Court Reporters are not involved in the restructuring plan process in England and Wales so this is an important distinction between the jurisdictions.
Market structure skewed towards SMEs
Scotland’s economy is characterised by a high proportion of small and medium-size enterprises. Historically, tools such as company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) have played a relatively limited role in Scotland because of this market structure. The same seems to be true, for now at least, with restructuring plans.
Risk-reward imbalance for smaller businesses
For a small company, the time, expense, and uncertainty of convening creditor meetings, obtaining consents or relying on cram down may not make sense, especially where liquidation or informal creditor compromises may achieve similar net returns at lower cost.
Taken together, despite the availability of the statutory tool, the practical threshold for using a restructuring plan remains high. The evidence from Scotland suggests that, for the time being, they will typically be limited to larger companies (e.g. Premier Oil, Dobbies) with complex creditor or lease obligations, secured lending, or multi-site retail/property liabilities where the cost and complexity may pay off in value preservation or going-concern rescue.
Future outlook
There is, of course, the possibility that as knowledge of the tool grows in the Scottish market and it is seen to be used successfully (particularly for smaller businesses) across the whole of the UK, that the number of restructuring plans proposed and sanctioned in Scotland will increase.
Legislative change would also help promote their use as might a reduced role for a Court Reporter (or perhaps even, over time and when the court is more familiar with the mechanics of restructuring plans, removal of that role). A lower level of overall financial investment needed to put a restructuring plan into place would lower the threshold for what may constitute a viable restructuring plan, making them more accessible to the wider Scottish business landscape.
Given the high degree of flexibility on offer, at the same time as the ability to bind creditors to an agreement (even if it is against their will) that helps secure the survival of the business, the restructuring plan should be an incredibly useful part of the toolkit available to directors of distressed businesses. The turnaround of a distressed business would often be a much better outcome than a liquidation (either CVL or compulsory) and it is very much hoped that restructuring plans move on from their slow start in Scotland and become more widely used.
