Offenders 'breaching community orders'

The National Audit Office has criticised the probation service for failing to effectively enforce community orders.

In a report published on Thursday, the spending watchdog warned that offenders missing sessions were being let off when providing "unacceptable" excuses.

Courts can impose a community orders, requiring a convict to take unpaid work or enter drug rehabilitation programmes, when a custodial sentence is not considered appropriate.

Officers are meant to send offenders back to court if they miss two sessions a year, but the NAO found that they were being let off if they claimed to have overslept or had transport problems.

"Occasionally offender managers may accept 'unacceptable' reasons when more rigorous enforcement would be more appropriate," said the report.

The NAO acknowledged the benefits of the orders, which included allowing offenders to stay with their families and reducing reoffending.

However the report revealed that the National Probation Service did not know how many orders it could deliver or how much they were costing the taxpayer.

And it found that there were long waiting lists for some group rehabilitation programmes.

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said: "Too often, offenders who have been given a community order are escaping elements of their punishment and rehabilitation.

"This is because the probation service, which manages offenders serving the orders, often fails to ensure all elements of an order are completed before it expires.

"In fact, the service does not know how many orders have not been completed, nor how many offenders break the terms of their orders.
 
"It doesn't know how much community orders cost to impose, nor how many orders it can handle.

"This lack of grip is highlighted by the fact that some probation officers are accepting an offender's oversleeping as a valid reason for his or her failure to attend probation appointments.

"The law-abiding taxpayers of this country deserve better."

Sir John Bourn, the head of the NAO, said: "There is some evidence that community orders can reduce the likelihood of reconviction, but I am concerned by gaps in the National Probation Service's knowledge about its management of these sentences.

"The service needs to identify its capacity to deliver community orders and the associated costs, and the effectiveness of different order requirements in reducing reconviction.

"As a matter of urgency, the service should establish a mechanism to monitor and report the number of orders not completed in accordance with courts' wishes."