The Dispute Service (TDS) has published its Statistical Briefing for 2021-22, and it is packed full of data that you may finding interesting, including the value of protected tenancy deposits across the UK.

Table 1: Deposits protected £ by country and type of scheme March 2022

This table reveals that the custodial scheme is by far the most popular in Scotland and Northern Ireland (In Scotland it is the only option).

In the past decade, interest rates have been low across the UK, and in this scenario, there is often very little interest to be generated on deposits if they are to be held in a landlords’ own account.

This is one of the reasons why in recent years, we have seen growth in deposits held in custodial schemes in England and Wales. Figures have almost doubled in the last 7 years, with 44% of all deposits protected by value are held in a custodial scheme.

Steve Harriott, TDS CEO, said: “In an era of low interest rates it is not surprising that increasing numbers of landlords and letting agents have decided not to keep deposits in their client account where they earn little interest and instead to transfer these deposits to the custodial schemes, where there is a free service. However, it will be interesting to see if the projected continuing increase in interest rates leads to this pattern of deposit protection changing and there being a resurgence of interest in the insurance backed schemes”.