After discovering that people in debt sometimes have to wait three months for their bankruptcy applications to be heard in court, the Government has published plans to speed up the bankruptcy process in England and Wales, the BBC reports.

If they were put in place, the plans – which were published towards the end of 2009 – would let people apply to become bankrupt by post or online, instead of going to court.

Ian Lucas, Business Minister, said: “Many people delay making a petition for bankruptcy because they do not want to appear in court – meaning they can sink further into debt.

“We want to reduce that delay, while also freeing up valuable court time and resources to deal with other aspects of insolvency.”

Personal insolvencies in England and Wales hit ‘record levels’ in 2009 – with almost 135,000 people declared insolvent. This was made up of almost 75,000 bankruptcies, almost 48,000 IVAs (Individual Voluntary Arrangements) and almost 12,000 DROs (Debt Relief Orders).