Latest Business Insolvency Index from Experian reveals increase in average financial strength score from April 2010 to March this year.
The average financial strength score, which offers an indication of how likely a firm is to fail in the next 12 months, improved from 80.99 going into April 2010 to 81.58 by the end of March 2011, according to Experian.

The biggest increase came from mid-sized companies, with between 100 and 500 employees, with the average score rising from 81.18 to 82.81.

Experian also revealed that the monthly insolvency rate in March 2011 was 0.11% - the same as that recorded in March 2010. However, when looking at the fiscal year as a whole, the insolvency rate fell to 1% from 1.20% for FY09/10.

The North East was the worst performing region, with the biggest increase in its insolvency rate - from 0.17 per cent in March 2010 to 0.22 per cent in March this year. Meanwhile, the South East and South West had the lowest rate of insolvency with only 0.08 per cent of the business population failing in March 2011.