Every week, around 6,000 hours of unpaid work are carried out by offenders across the West Midlands.

Our Unpaid Work Division is responsible for co-ordinating offenders’ work programmes and for ensuring that they complete their Unpaid Work orders as specified by the sentence of the court.

The number of hours an individual offender is required to work reflects the seriousness of the sentence.

Assignments undertaken vary widely and include, for example, conservation work, removing rubbish and graffiti, building sensory gardens, and undertaking repairs to property and equipment.

All the work is closely supervised by the Probation Service, which takes care to match the right offenders with the right projects and ensure that safe working conditions are maintained.

Unpaid Work is intended to benefit not just those individuals and organisations for whom the work is carried out, but all sections of the community as well. It can also help to change offenders by teaching them new skills and giving them pride in the outcome of their efforts.

Failure by offenders to comply with the terms of their Unpaid Work orders results in ‘breach action’ being taken by the Probation Service. This involves the offender returning to court for re-sentencing.

The Probation Service monitors the outcomes of different projects in order to evaluate their effectiveness.