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Official figures are expected to show that a record number of people in England and Wales were declared insolvent during the second quarter of the year.
Insolvency practitioners Tenon Recovery expect around 33,000 people to have been made insolvent during the three months to the end of June, the highest level recorded on a non-seasonally adjusted basis since figures began in 1960.
The group warns that it expects personal insolvencies to continue to rise during the second half of the year to push the total number of people declared insolvent for 2009 up to a new record of 140,000, compared with 106,544 in 2008.
However, figures for the latest quarter are expected to show a slight dip in the number of people declared bankrupt.
Mark Sands, director of personal insolvency at Tenon Recovery, predicts there will have been between 19,000 and 20,000 bankruptcies during the three months on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, compared with 20,446 during the first quarter.
The number of people taking out an Individual Voluntary Arrangement, under which interest on debt is frozen in exchange for a set amount being repaid each month, is expected to have risen to 12,000, up from just under 10,000 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.
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The Insolvency Service figures will also show the number of people taking out one of the Government's new Debt Relief Orders (DRO) for the first time.
DROs, which became available in April, aim to offer an alternative to bankruptcy for people with debts of less than £15,000, assets of less than £300 and less than £50 surplus income a month.
But early feed-back from insolvency practitioners suggests that take-up of the orders may be lower than originally thought due to a backlog in dealing with potential applicants, and the fact that pension funds are classed as an asset, making many people ineligible.
The Insolvency Service figures will also give details on the number of businesses that went into administration during the second quarter.
