The annual report recently published by Companies House interestingly shows that there were 400,555 company incorporations during the year ended on 31 March 2011. This is an increase of 11 per cent on the 362,000 incorporations registered during the year ended on 31 March 2010. This increase may reflect a more positive outlook in the economy in that period or may be due to other, more negative, factors such as an increase in the number of individuals setting up companies to operate on a self-employed basis due to redundancy.