Key Points

This information relates to only one of the ten requirements that can be imposed for Community Payback Orders (CPOs).    The unpaid work or other activity requirement (abbreviated to unpaid work) is one of the most common to be imposed. Unpaid work requirements are continuously being imposed, and, at the same time, existing requirements are being completed. Completing unpaid work requirements takes time, and as a result, there will always be hours in the system while requirements are being progressed.

During the pandemic, Scotland’s local authorities began providing data on the number of unpaid work hours still to be progressed (excluding breaches). This information is management data rather than accredited official statistics. It provides a broad indication of the volume of hours to be progressed, but the data quality is less consistent than for accredited official statistics and should be treated as an estimate.

• In 2024-25 there were 16,500 CPOs imposed by the courts, which included 1.56 million unpaid work hours imposed as part of unpaid work requirements. This was the highest number of unpaid work hours imposed since 2017-18.
• During the pandemic, there was a reduction in unpaid work requirements being finished within the year they were imposed, or the following year. This current figure was 85% for those imposed in 2023-24 and finished by end of 2024-25. Pre-pandemic this was about 92%.
• There has been a decrease of 11% in the number of CPOs issued in the first 11 months of 2025-26 (13,400), compared to this period in 2024-25 (15,000). In the first 11 months of 2025-26, the estimated range of unpaid work hours being imposed was between 1.24 and 1.36 million.
• In February 2026, it is estimated that there were 871,600 unpaid work hours to be progressed. This was an increase of 1% from February 2025.