Directors should pause before signing anything. Fresh August 2025 data shows a market shaped by volume, not recoveries. Director Freedom reviewed live appointment books for three names that define the extremes: Jamie Playford at Leading Business Services Ltd, Andrew Ryder at JT Maxwell Ltd, and John Paul Bell at Clarke Bell Ltd. The pattern is clear and it is not built around outcomes for creditors or directors.
From the August 2025 top‑20 list, Playford (IP 9735) sits first with 2,475 live cases. Ryder (IP 17552) ranks fifth with 973 live cases. Bell (IP 8608) is tenth with 634 live cases. The rest of the top ten cluster between roughly 650 and 1,526 live files. One statistic speaks volumes: Playford alone holds almost four times the live book of the tenth‑ranked practitioner.
Playford’s profile shows a lifetime total of 3,547 appointments with 2,475 still live. Joint appointments account for just 1.9 percent. The case mix is overwhelmingly CVL-heavy: 2,856 creditors’ voluntary liquidations, 593 members’ voluntary liquidations, 13 company voluntary arrangements, and 68 administrations. After years of relative flat intake, filings surge from late 2020 with repeated spikes through 2023 to 2025.
On capacity, the public filings for FY24 indicate a mid‑50s headcount, which implies about 45 live files per staff member. If only two licensed IPs are actively taking UK appointments, that equates to around 1,200 live files per authoriser. Such concentration with minimal joint sign‑off demands industrial‑strength supervision and investigation quality assurance. Without it, directors and creditors face process over substance.
Ryder’s JT Maxwell profile is even more stark on closures. Lifetime appointments total 1,181, with 973 still live, meaning about 82 percent of all cases remain open. Joint appointments are just 0.8 percent. The mix again leans to CVLs: 1,132 CVLs, 18 MVLs, 18 CVAs and 12 administrations. UK accounts indicate staff rose from 17 in 2023 to roughly 20 in 2024.
Although JT Maxwell’s website lists three IPs, appointment data points to one active UK authoriser driving the current book. Laura Prescott shows 12 live files with a 96.6 percent joint history; Aisling Muldoon shows no UK appointments. The practical effect is a single IP carrying about 973 live cases, or roughly 49 live files per staff member. The intake acceleration from 2023 onwards, with completions lagging, is the classic accumulation curve that turns into aged work‑in‑progress unless closure capacity is expanded quickly.
There is also a funnel question directors deserve to see in daylight. Public material links Director Helpline to JT Maxwell through common directorship and shareholding. When a service presented to directors as free and impartial routes a high share of callers into a practice where one IP carries around a thousand live files, the independence optics are poor. Any such relationship should be set out on page one, together with any referral fee arrangements.
By contrast, Bell’s Clarke Bell profile looks like a mature solvent‑liquidation specialist. Lifetime appointments stand at 5,174 with 634 live. Joint appointments are used heavily at 74.4 percent. The case mix is 4,002 MVLs, 1,123 CVLs, 34 administrations, 13 compulsory liquidations and 2 CVAs. The intake curve runs from the 1990s, tapering after 2021 with a visible cadence of closures.
Load appears more evenly spread at Clarke Bell. Three licensed IPs are named publicly, which implies around 210 live cases per IP and approximately 40 live files per staff member if a mid‑teens headcount is assumed. High joint usage shares supervision and reduces single‑signatory risk. For directors and creditors, that tends to mean more eyes on the investigative steps that actually matter.
Set side by side, the authoriser-risk gap is obvious. Playford’s low joint usage with 2,475 live files concentrates supervisory responsibility in very few hands. Ryder’s model effectively places around 1,000 live files on one IP, a single point of failure by any regulatory measure. Bell’s model spreads decisions by using joint appointments on most files, halving the chance that critical steps are missed or delayed.
Open‑rate and closure drag tell their own story. JT Maxwell has about 82 percent of all lifetime appointments still open. Playford’s very large live book relative to lifetime hints that intake has outpaced completions since 2023. Bell’s live cases are a smaller share of lifetime totals, consistent with a steady rhythm of closing estates rather than stacking them.
These loads matter because CVLs demand real investigative work: scrutinising antecedent transactions, testing connected‑party deals, pulling bank statements and chasing asset recoveries. When one or two authorisers carry thousands of files with few joints, investigations drift towards tick‑box processes. Creditor engagement then becomes formulaic, which is how unsecured creditors end up reading the familiar line: no dividend available.
The fee logic in small CVLs compounds the problem. Estates usually fund the fees. If realisations are modest and fee draw‑downs track those realisations, the pot can be absorbed by costs, leaving nothing for unsecured creditors. What you see in many completed files is not an aberration; it is the economic model at work. Directors and creditors must insist on evidence of recoveries per pound of estimated assets, not promises.
Regulators and boards can act without waiting for a scandal. Firms running factory‑level live loads should be publishing a supervision map that shows, for every 100 live files, who signs and who reviews, together with monthly file‑review counts by reviewer. They should report an aged WIP dashboard by 0–90, 91–180, 181–365 and 366+ days with reasons and next actions, visible to creditors.
Every file should track, and be ready to evidence, investigation milestones: director questionnaire returned, bank statements obtained, antecedent review completed, recoveries pursued and outcomes achieved. On a rolling sample, firms should disclose fees versus realisations and the pounds returned per pound of assets in the Statement of Affairs. Where a helpline or introducer is related, the relationship and any referral fees belong on the first page of the advice, not in the small print.
Regulatory thresholds can also be tightened. Publishing firm‑level KPIs would let the market see live‑per‑IP ratios, joint‑appointment rates, median days to first report and to closure, and dividends by class. A caseload ratio that triggers a Recognised Professional Body review when breached would put guardrails around the single‑signatory risk. Above an agreed case‑count threshold, joint appointments should be the default, not the exception.
For directors choosing an adviser, ask three things upfront: the firm’s live‑per‑IP ratio, its joint‑appointment rate, and its median time to closure. Demand a line‑by‑line fee budget and the basis for fees. If the engagement says fees will be taken from realisations with no cap, assume unsecured creditors will see nothing. Request the firm’s dividend statistics for the past 12 months of CVLs and CVAs, not hand‑picked testimonials.
In plain English, the three models now look like this. Playford is scale with minimal joint usage and a very large live book; Ryder is a one‑IP concentration risk with a backlog; Bell is a solvent‑liquidation specialist using joint sign‑off, with lower authoriser load. The staff‑per‑live‑file ratios may look similar, but the supervisory exposure is not.
The August 2025 numbers do not describe a healthy, competitive market delivering value for creditors. They describe an industrial liquidation pipeline. Overlay a director‑facing helpline that is economically aligned with an appointment‑taking firm and you have advice that appears impartial to the caller but functions as a sales route into CVL.
Directors deserve advice that starts with stabilising cash, independent triage and genuine alternatives: HMRC Time to Pay, consensual resets with creditors and, where viable, a tightly‑costed CVA. Before you sign anything, speak to an independent turnaround adviser who is not paid for referring you into liquidation. Slow down, get the facts, and keep control of the options.