The Community Payback Order (CPO) will replace community service orders, probation orders and supervised attendance orders, for offences committed on or after 1 February 2011.
Community sentences arising from offences committed before 1 February 2011 will be unaffected by the new legislation and will run alongside the new system until they are completed. Arrangements for Drug Treatment and Testing Orders remain unchanged.
The CPO provides scope for courts to punish offenders in a way that also addresses the areas of their lives that need to change. For example, the alcohol treatment requirement provides opportunities for courts to refer alcohol dependent offenders to alcohol services for treatment. For those offenders who are not dependent on alcohol, but it is nevertheless a factor in their offending behaviour, this could be addressed through 1 to 1 work with the case manager under an offender supervision requirement, through a programme requirement, or through the "other activity" element of an unpaid work or other activity requirement.
Similarly, the CPO allows for those offenders who are dependent on drugs or have a tendency to misuse drugs to be referred to drug services for treatment. The CPO enables courts to impose one or more of a range of requirements on the offender. These requirements are:
- unpaid work or other activity requirement
- offender supervision requirement
- compensation requirement
- programme requirement
- mental health treatment requirement
- drug treatment requirement
- alcohol treatment requirement
- residence requirement
- conduct requirement.
Key features of the community payback order are:
- It is a sentence - not an alternative to a sentence, as probation is
- It will be an alternative to custody; but courts will also be able to impose a community payback order with a restricted range of requirements as an alternative to, or in addition to, a fine
- Where the law would previously have imposed short jail terms (or more recently supervised attendance orders) on minor fine defaulters, courts will now impose a low tariff community payback order
- A community payback order including an unpaid work or other activity requirement may only be imposed on an offender aged 16 or above
- A further offence committed during the order is not a breach of the order
- A court may schedule discretionary periodic review hearings to check on an offender's progress at any point within the duration of the order
- A court can decide to discharge an order early, in circumstances where an offender has made highly positive progress
- If an offender breaches a community payback order, the court can vary the order to impose new or different requirements. It can decide to impose a restricted movement requirement (electronic monitoring). Ultimately, it can decide to revoke the order and impose a custodial sentence, or any other disposal that it could have used if the CPO had not been imposed
- The local authority must carry out an annual community consultation on the types of activities to be carried out locally by those subject to an unpaid work or other activity requirement.
Useful links for further information: