Unpaid work requirements were introduced by the 2003 Act as part of the requirements sentencers can impose as part of a community order – those provisions were replaced by the Sentencing Code. Under the Code, a community order imposed by the court may include one or more of the fifteen community order requirements outlined in section 201 of the Code, which should include at least one requirement imposed for the purpose of punishment, and an unpaid work requirement is one such community order requirement a court can impose. Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 9 to the Sentencing Code defines an unpaid work requirement as a requirement that the offender must perform unpaid work to be completed within a period of 12 months.
Legal background Part 2: Management of offenders after sentencing Community order requirements and community requirements Removal of maximum period for unpaid work requirement