Community Payback Consultation 2023

Every year the City of Edinburgh Council’s justice services conducts a Community Payback consultation to gather the public’s views on Community Payback Orders (CPO) which are given by the Court to people as an alternative to a prison sentence, to pay for their crimes. We asked about the unpaid work part of a CPO; this is when an individual who has committed an offence does unpaid work in the community.

We asked about general awareness of CPOs and unpaid work.  

We asked whether you thought unpaid work gave people the opportunity to pay for their crimes. 

We asked for your suggestions about community projects or organisations that could benefit from unpaid work.

We received 105 responses for the 2023 consultation.  The majority of respondents (81%) were fully aware of CPOs, with 16% having some awareness. Just under 3% of respondents had no awareness of CPOs.

There was a high level of awareness of unpaid work with 93% of respondents stating they were fully aware of unpaid work and just under 4% having partial awareness. Just under 3% had no awareness of unpaid work.

42% of respondents thought that community payback gave people who have committed offences the opportunity to pay for their crimes. 41% thought that it partly gave people that opportunity. 17% were unsure or disagreed, believing that unpaid work did not present the opportunity to pay back to the community for crimes committed.

82% of respondents gave answers to the invitation to suggest community projects or organisations that could benefit from unpaid work. 

The level of awareness of unpaid work and community payback is high however from the consultation responses it is clear that there is less confidence amongst the public that those undertaking unpaid work are being given the opportunity to pay back for their crimes.

To help raise awareness of the value of community payback both to communities and individuals as a worthwhile and appropriate alternative to prison, justice services plans to share examples of recent unpaid work community projects and feedback from beneficiaries. From February 2024, working with our communications colleagues, we propose to highlight this positive work across local media channels to further the understanding of community payback and unpaid work.

The suggestions we received from respondents in relation to potential community projects that could benefit from unpaid work have been passed to the team who manage community payback unpaid work projects in the community for their consideration and follow up where appropriate.

Justice services would like to thank everyone who took part in the consultation.