Community Payback
To receive a presentation by the Probation Service on the status of community payback in Cheshire East.
Minutes:
The Committee gave consideration to a presentation on Community Payback by the Senior Probation Officer.
Community Payback was introduced in 1973 as Community Service. In the last ten years it had gone through a range of name changes including Community Punishment, Enhanced Community Punishment, unpaid work and since 2005 Community Payback. The legal requirement was to perform between 40 and 300 hours of unpaid work, but all other references to the work performed is to Community Payback to avoid any misconceptions that the work was being carried out on a voluntary basis and to ensure that the public could have confidence that offenders were being punished for the offences they had committed and thus have greater confidence in the Criminal Justice System.
In terms of compliance (the number of offenders who successfully complete their Community Payback), 80.1% of offenders in Cheshire successfully completed their requirement. This was above the national average of 75.4% and made Cheshire Probation one of the highest performing Trusts.
Community Payback is undertaken in two principle settings:
a) Agencies, e.g. Help the Aged, Barnardos, British Heart Foundation, in which offenders would be directly supervised by agency staff who report on the hours that they had worked.
b) Projects e.g. the Community Garden, Ruskin Road Allotments etc, where offenders would be supervised in a group of up to 10 by a Community Payback Supervisor. Projects could be as varied as ground maintenance, painting and decorating, graffiti removal, ‘Grot Spot’ clearance and crime reduction projects.
Mr Skyner reported that he would happily receive nominations for projects; however larger projects were preferred which would allow for seven to eight hours work for seven offenders.
There were currently two Service Level Agreements in place with Cheshire West and Cheshire Council and Halton Borough Council, which covered works relating to parks, streetscene and Graffiti.
Mr Skyner went on to outline the changes to the Probation Service and highlighted that prisons would be privatised and Community Payback would go out to tender with contracts being awarded from 1 April 2012.
It was suggested that due to the budget cuts with Local Authorities, the Probation Service should look at taking over some of the services as the cuts may provide an opportunity to expand.
The Chairman highlighted that Community Payback was not part of Restorative Justice, which the Committee had previously been investigating.
RESOLVED
That Mr Skyner be thanked for attending the meeting and the presentation be noted.