Community Payback Orders: Commenced
type: Dataset
conforms to: http://mlcommons.org/croissant/1.0
contact point: ContactPoint
date modified: 2026-08-13T13:05:59.811308
date published: 2026-08-13T13:04:45.607346
description: Community payback orders (CPOs) replaced probation, community service and supervised attendance orders. They were introduced for offences committed on or after 1st February 2011. CPOs are now by far the most commonly issued social work order. This data is derived from an annual return made to the Scottish Government by local authority social work departments and gives the number of CPOs commenced in each year from 2011-12 by age group and gender. More data which shows the number of different social work order types (encompassing drug treatment & testing orders and fiscal work orders as well as CPOs and their predecessors) back to 2004-05 can be found in the datasets [Social Work Orders Commenced](http://statistics.gov.scot/data/social-work-orders-commenced) and [Social Work Orders Terminated](http://statistics.gov.scot/data/social-work-orders-terminated) on this website. Further data on CPOs at local authority level can be found on the Scottish Government [website](https://www.gov.scot/collections/criminal-justice-social-work/).
accuracy: These statistics are considered of good quality as they come from recording systems which local authorities use for case management and internal monitoring. The data has, in addition, been quality assured by the Scottish Government via extensive accuracy checks, including identifying any major differences between the current year and previous years.
comment: Community payback orders commenced in each year from 2011-12 by age group and gender.
completeness: This data brings together age and gender breakdowns for all years in the one place. The age groups match those which are used throughout the published criminal justice social work bulletin.
confidentiality: The data on Community Payback Orders Commenced does not contain any directly identifiable personal information.
consistency: Community payback orders were introduced for offences committed on or after 1st February 2011. Numbers were not collected for the year 2010-11 due to the small numbers (estimated to be 300) involved. However, data collected from 2011-12 onwards were collected on a comparable basis.
geographical coverage: S92
geographical coverage: S12
license id: uk-ogl
next update: 2026-01-01
quality management: Extensive quality assurance is conducted to ensure the data received from local authorities is as accurate as possible. Part of this involves the data loading system putting the data through a number of checks and identifying issues with the data which local authorities then need to look at and fix. Checks are also made by the Scottish Government to ensure there is consistency across the data for different years for every individual order.
reference period: PeriodOfTime
  end date: 2024
  start date: 2011
timeliness: It is always aimed to publish criminal justice social work statistics as soon as possible after the end of the financial year in question, As a large volume of data is collected at unit level for both community payback orders and drug treatment & testing order, these statistics are normally updated in January.
uniqueness: Not assessed
update frequency: annual
validity: These statistics help provide trends related to the workload of community payback orders and the type of orders which local authorities deal with. For example, while criminal proceedings data provides details of community payback orders given by court, this only covers those given as a penalty of first disposal and not those which are given as, for example, a penalty for fine default or orders given as a result of an appeal to the original penalty.
will be updated: true
included in data catalog: CKAN
keywords: Crime and Justice
license: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
record set: records

Scottish Government
type: Organization
contact point: ContactPoint
  contact type: customer service

Value
type: Field
data type: Integer
source:
  extract:
    column: Value

community-payback-orders-commenced.csv
type: FileObject
description: Data file for Community Payback Orders: Commenced
comment: Community payback orders commenced in each year from 2011-12 by age group and gender.
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encoding format: CSV

Units
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Gender
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Age
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GeographyName
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GeographyCode
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DateCode
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