Community Payback

‘Community Payback’ is the term given to what used to be widely recognised as ‘Community Service’.

For certain crimes, a court can sentence an offender to complete a fixed number of hours of Community Payback. Community Payback work is unpaid, supervised and designed to be challenging. Payback makes an offender give something back to the community, and also demonstrates to the public that justice can be used to bring about a positive change.  

The type of unpaid work that an offender might usually carry out would be graffiti removal, community clean ups, renovating street furniture (e.g. park benches and play equipment), and decorating. To find out more about Community Payback projects in Torbay, click here.

If you know of a community project in your area that is struggling to find labour, it may be that Community Payback could assist.

To be considered for Community Payback, a project must meet the following:

• It must benefit the local community
• It must not take paid work away from other people  
• Nobody must make a profit from the work
• It must be challenging and demanding
• It must be worthwhile and constructive
• Offenders must be seen to be putting something back into the community.

In Torbay, over 6000 hrs of Community Payback are often completed over a period of 3 months. This equates to approximately £170,000 of free labour, based on the minimum wage, provided to local communities as offenders pay back for the crimes they have committed.

Anyone can nominate a project, so, if you are an individual, member of a club, community group, faith group or voluntary organisation and have a project please complete the form below:

• Request - Community Payback Project

Please send your completed form to:

Project Administrator
Community Payback Team
Thurlow House
Thurlow Road
Torquay
TQ1 3EQ.

Alternatively you can telephone 01803 213530 or visit Devon and Cornwall Probation Trust website for further information.