Unpaid work hours imposed

Key Point: There has been an increase of 7% in the number of CPOs issued in the first 11 months of 2024-25, compared to this period in 2023-24. The number of unpaid work hours imposed for the first 11 months of 2024-25 is estimated to be in the range of 1.34 million and 1.41 million.

The number of unpaid work hours imposed by Scottish courts feeds into the number of unpaid work hours being progressed. The previous section showed the rate of unpaid work requirements finishing. This section looks at the number of unpaid work hours entering the system.

Chart 1 below shows data from two different data sources. The first is Justice Social Work Statistics which displays the number of hours imposed per month from April 2019 to March 2024. Management information from April 2024 to September 2025 is derived from the Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard. The information from the dashboard should be seen as providing a broadly indicative estimate rather than a precise measure of activity. To indicate the change in the chart due to the different data source, these six bars are in a lighter patterned colour. (See Annex A for additional information on how this data is approximated, there is about 4% difference between the two data sources).

Chart 1: There was a large drop in unpaid work hours imposed in April 2020 when the first national lockdown occurred

Number of unpaid work hours imposed, Scotland, April 2019 to September 2024

Since 2020-21, the number of unpaid work hours imposed has been increasing. In 2023-24, there were 15,086 CPOs imposed with 1.39 million unpaid work hours. This is still lower than in 2019-20 (before the pandemic) when there were 16,814 CPOs imposed with 1.52 million hours.

Throughout the year the number of hours imposed varies month to month. From 2017-18 to 2019-20, the number of hours imposed was generally higher in May and October, with the lowest during December. This pattern was not the same from 2020-21 due to the disruption caused to the courts by the pandemic (this is shown in Chart 1).

The estimated number of hours imposed from April to September 2024 is around 772,500. This is at least 14% higher than this time period in 2023, when compared with accredited official statistics. (The 2024 estimates are likely to increase slightly (approximately by 4%) when this data is replaced by the official statistics for 2023-24 (see Annex A).)

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) has recently started to publish Monthly Criminal Management Information, which includes the number of CPOs issued. At the time of this publication the data to February 2025 was available. This provides an indication of the trend for the missing months from chart 1 i.e. October 2024 to February 2025 (as shown in Chart 2).

Chart 2: The number of CPOs imposed in 2024-25 is higher than 2023-24.

Number of Community Payback Orders imposed in Scotland, April 2024 to February 2025

Note: 2024-25 from SCTS monthly data and 2023-24 from Justice Social Work statistics 2023-24.

Chart 2 shows that there has been more CPOs imposed in 2024-25, the highest being in May 2024 at 1,538, and the lowest in December 2024 at 1,160. There has been an increase of 7% in the number of CPOs issued in the first 11 months of 2024-25 ,compared to this period in 2023-24.

From the monthly data, it cannot be identified which CPOs have an unpaid work requirement. In 2023-24, 68% of CPOs had an unpaid work requirement. In order to create an estimated range for unpaid work hours imposed, the total number of CPOs for each month has been divided into the total number of unpaid work hours. This provides the lowest average hours (87) and the highest average hours (98) for CPOs over the months from April 2023 to September 2024. These values are used to estimate the unpaid work hours imposed for the missing period October 2024 to February 2025. The estimate for these five months would lie in the range of 563,100 to 633,900 hours. Please note, the correct average for unpaid work requirements is published in Justice Social Work Statistics and this is calculated only on CPOs where the unpaid work requirement is known.

For the first 11 months of 2024-25, the estimated range of unpaid work hours imposed lies between 1,335,600 and 1,406,400. The increase in the number of unpaid work hours for the first 11 months of 2024-25 is in the range of 6% to 11%, compared to the same time period in 2023-24.

With an estimate of at least a 6% increase in the number of unpaid work hours imposed in the first 11 months of 2024-25, it is expected that the hours to be progressed in 2024-25 would follow a similar upward trend.