Community Payback Orders – Unpaid Work or Other Activity Requirements – May 2024

Key points

This information relates to only one of the ten requirements that can be imposed for Community Payback Orders (CPOs). The unpaid work or other activity requirement (abbreviated to unpaid work) is one of the most common to be imposed. Unpaid work requirements are continuously being imposed and, at the same time, existing requirements are being completed. Therefore, there are always unpaid work hours that are being progressed and always outstanding hours in the system due to the time taken to undertake the work.

During the pandemic, data began to be collected from Scotland’s local authorities on the number of hours to be progressed, excluding breaches. This data is considered management information and not accredited official statistics. It gives a broad indication of the unpaid work hours to be progressed. The quality of the management data is not as consistent as accredited official statistics and should be considered more as an estimate.

• In 2022-23, there were 14,700 CPOs imposed by the courts, which included 1.32 million unpaid work hours imposed as part of unpaid work requirements.
• There was a reduction in unpaid work requirements being finished within the year they were imposed or the following year, during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, this was about 92%. This figure is now 83% for those imposed in 2021-22 and finished by end of 2022-23.
• At the start of the financial year 2023-24, there were 9,100 unpaid work requirements being progressed in Scotland. In May 2023, it was estimated that 780,900 unpaid work hours were to be progressed.
• During April to December 2023, there have been around 991,600 unpaid work hours imposed by courts over these nine months. This has increased by at least 2% from the same time-period in 2022. Unpaid work hours to be progressed were relatively stable over this time period (between 770,300 and 780,900).
• The most recent estimate for May 2024 showed 817,100 unpaid work hours were to be progressed, an increase of about 5% from May 2023.