Our approach is guided by evidence on what works to reduce reoffending, and we work with partners across government to support offenders in custody and the community to build skills, secure a job and stable housing, access treatment for drug and alcohol use, and develop the personal skills and behaviours that help individuals turn away from crime.

Evidence has shown that community orders and suspended sentences can be more effective at reducing reoffending than short custodial sentences. The evidence published in both 2015 and 2019, which matched groups of offenders, found that short sentences were associated with higher reoffending compared to court orders by approximately 4 percentage points. This is why, in the Sentencing Act 20206, we have introduced a presumption for courts to suspend short custodial sentences of 12-months or less unless an exemption applies or in exceptional circumstances.

In 2025, the Ministry of Justice published the Reducing Reoffending Synthesis of Evidence on Effectiveness of Interventions, providing an overview of the evidence on what works to reduce reoffending. This includes evidence on key interventions including on accommodation, substance misuse, education and employment.

Community Payback provides a broad range of opportunities for offenders to make reparations to communities, including through projects that improve local environments in rural areas. Most Community Payback projects include clearance activities such as removing litter, cutting back overgrown vegetation, and addressing low-level fly-tipping.

In addition, some projects are specifically focused on rural environments, supported through national partnerships with organisations such as Forestry England and the Canal & River Trust.

Projects can be nominated both by officials and by members of the public via an easy-to-use online nominations platform.

Nominate a Community Payback project - GOV.UK

The effectiveness in Community Payback delivery has been evaluated in the recent Unpaid Work Process evaluation commissioned by the Ministry of Justice and the HM Inspectorate of Probation’s Thematic of Unpaid work. While these does not specifically address the impact on environmental crime, they reference projects making significant and tangible contributions to public spaces, such as parks, schools and canals.

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on community order and suspended sentence order terminations, by termination reason, including those terminated following a further conviction or due to non-compliance with court ordered requirements. The latest available annual figures can be found in Table 6.22 of the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly bulletin for 2025, available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69eff92e08ecdb5c6f34b020/probation-2025.ods.

It is not possible to identify the specific outcomes of these breaches without incurring disproportionate costs.

In terms of what the total cost covers, it is things such as staffing costs, fleet (vans) and tools.

We do not hold information on average cost per sentence in the format requested.

The average cost per hour of Unpaid Work credited was £17.15 (2022/23), £19.14 (2023/24) and £21.24 (2024/25). Data are not provided for the performance year 2021/22 as this is only a partial year of data following the reunification of the Probation Service.

The average cost per hour credited is calculated by dividing the total spend by the number of hours credited in each year.

Between July 2021 and June 2025, a total of 24,341,125 hours of unpaid work were sentenced in England and Wales. In the same period, 17,614,065 hours of unpaid work were credited in England and Wales.

Periods marked with an asterisk (*) indicate incomplete performance years.

Hours sentenced are the number of hours that the offender is required to work as part of the sentence of the court.

Upon attendance of the unpaid work session, the time the offender spends working will be credited towards the number of hours they have been ordered to complete. This includes where a person attends a session and subsequently fails to comply with instructions or is sent home due to poor behaviour, or where service issues during the day cause a session to be cancelled.

Data from April 2022 to June 2025 sourced from the latest published statistics on unpaid work. A link can be found here - Unpaid work management information, update to June 2025 - GOV.UK

Data from July 2021 to March 2022 sourced from nDelius on 13/04/2026. While these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.

Data from the biannual Unpaid Work publication are rounded to the nearest five hours worked for data suppression purposes and yearly totals are calculated on the rounded values of each quarter. To be consistent with the publication, the same principle has been applied to data between July 2021 and March 2022.

The next publication is due on 14 May 2026.

Data are provided from July 2021, the month following the reunification of the Probation Service.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.

The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.

The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

The data requested can be found in the following table:

Periods marked with an asterisk (*) indicate incomplete performance years. The data provided is from July 2021, the month following the reunification of the Probation Service.

All data has been sourced from nDelius on 13/04/2026. While this data has been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.

Please note, data relating to those sentenced in 2025/26 has not been provided as recording of this period is still ongoing and it would therefore not portray a true reflection of current performance.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.

The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

The number of band 3 Community Payback supervisors employed by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in each of the last five years is given in the following table. Figures are provided for 31 December each year and are on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis.

Table: Number of FTE band 3 Community Payback supervisors in post on 31 December: 2021 to 2025

Notes:

1. Only includes band 3 staff with the job title of ‘community payback supervisor’. Any staff with that job title but are not band 3 are not included.

The reoffending rates for adults with an index disposal of a community order was 36.4% in 2022/23 and 38.0% in 2023/24. The data can be found in the latest proven reoffending statistics release, in the annual tables here, in table C1a.

Studies have found that short custodial sentences of less than 12 months were associated with higher reoffending rates (approximately 4 percentage points higher) than when court orders of any length had been given (which includes both community orders and suspended sentence orders).

However, it is essential that community punishment works. The Sentencing Act 2026 includes a range of measures to make community punishment tougher. These include banning offenders from attending pubs, bars and clubs, as well as public events such as sports and concerts. The courts will also be able to prohibit an offender from driving as a punishment regardless of the offence they have committed. We have also introduced new tough restriction zones which will restrict offenders to a specific geographical area. These will be electronically monitored and are intended to serve not just as a punishment, but as an important tool to protect victims.

There is no specific route to claim compensation related to any work or community service undertaken as part of a sentence, which is subsequently overturned.

For individuals who have suffered a miscarriage of justice, section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act provides for the Secretary of State to pay compensation to an individual, subject to meeting the statutory test. This is administrated by the Miscarriages of Justice Application Service. If an individual is deemed eligible, the level of award is determined by an Independent Assessor, and in October 2025, we increased the maximum cap for compensation by 30%.

There is no specific route to claim compensation related to any work or community service undertaken as part of a sentence, which is subsequently overturned.

For individuals who have suffered a miscarriage of justice, section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act provides for the Secretary of State to pay compensation to an individual, subject to meeting the statutory test. This is administrated by the Miscarriages of Justice Application Service. If an individual is deemed eligible, the level of award is determined by an Independent Assessor, and in October 2025, we increased the maximum cap for compensation by 30%.

The table below sets out number of individuals with sentences that terminated in the calendar years between 2021 and 2025, and where there was Unpaid Work completed as part of the sentence itself recorded as having been terminated due to being overturned on appeal:

These data have been gathered from National Delius (the Probation Service case management system).