Community payback completion rates remain stable

The number of social work orders issued has been stable over the past six years, with the most recent figures showing a total of 20,500 in 2016-17. The vast majority of those (19,100) were community payback orders.

Most community payback orders included a requirement for unpaid work or other activity (76 per cent) and 53 per cent included offender supervision.

In 2016-17, 67 per cent of community payback orders were successfully completed. This was around the level observed over the past six years which has been higher than the completion rates for the orders they replaced.

Older people were more likely than younger people to successfully complete their orders, with completion rates 77 per cent for those aged over 40 and 60 per cent for under 18s. In addition, those in employment (81 per cent) were substantially more likely to complete than those unemployed or economically inactive (62 per cent).

There were 480 drug treatment and testing orders issued in 2016-17, and numbers have been decreasing since 2012-13.

Almost 900 fiscal work orders were issued in 2016-17, 76 per cent more than the previous year.