Working without directorship

Contracting without a company directorship. I am taking some advice but would like a second opinion from people who are knowledgeable about contracting.

Following a long period out of work 2003-3, I used the income from the next work I got, to pay off severe personal bills that had accumulated, but not enough to pay HMRC who then asked for a winding up on the company, which led to liquidation via the official receiver. The company had no assets so this was a fruitless exercise, and they would have been much better just asking for a repayment arrangement. However.

They now want to disqualify me as a director for 5 years, despite no members of the public being involved.

I am currently working through a managed service company, which notionally requires me to be a director, but presumably this would have to stop, even though this is surely a 'safe' option as far as the receiver/DTI is concerned.

Could my wife set up a company for me to work through, or would this still fall foul of the rule "...indirectly being concerned or taking part in the promotion, formation or management of a company" - she would use someone like JSA to do all the admin.

Or is there some other arrangement that would work - the rules also preclude being a partner in an LLP too, which we did set up 'just in case' when the winding up occurred; I will have to deregister from that I imagine.

----- ccj