Information on Community Payback Orders: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of people who have appeared in Scottish Courts who have been given Community Payback, ordered by the court in the calendar year 2022.

2. The number of those identified in (1) above who have completed their Community Payback in compliance with what the Court ordered in the same calendar year of 2023.

After clarification of the year for question b was to be 2022.

3. If in fact you can provide some information using the financial year for 2022-2023 that would be great.

Response

a) The number of CPOs imposed in 2022 in Scotland was 14,178.

b) The number of CPOs imposed in 2022 which finished in that year was 1,268 (9%), of these 785 (62%) were completed successfully.

Finished CPOs included any with a completion or termination date. CPOs are conducted over a period of time and have requirements imposed by the court. There are up to ten different requirements. Figures in 2022 were subject to the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 which had extended time limits for completion of existing unpaid work or other activity requirements in CPOs by 12 months, and required any new requirements made to be given at least 12 months to complete. This came into effect on 7 April 2020 and applied to orders imposed before the end of 30 September 2022.

c) Some of the information you have requested is available from:

Justice Social Work Statistics, 2022-23’s chapter 8 supplies information for financial year 2022-23. This includes completion/termination information and provides the percentages of CPOs completed/terminated from year imposed, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2022-23. Publication is available at the following weblink: https://www.gov.scot/publications/justice-social-work-statistics-scotland-2022-23/.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.