Community Orders
(asked on 10th April 2026) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the total annual cost of administering the Community Payback scheme was in each of the last five years; and what the average cost per (a) sentence and (b) completed hour of unpaid work was in each of those years.
Financial Year | Total Community Payback Unpaid Work Spend (£) |
2021/22 | £47,340,492 |
2022/23 | £77,175,893 |
2023/24 | £89,614,915 |
2024/25 | £96,014,945 |
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.