The Government is introducing measures to incentivise offenders on community sentences to engage with their orders and complete their requirements.
	In current practice, probation practitioners cannot return a case to court to revoke a UPW requirement based on an offender’s good behaviour – all sentenced hours must be completed in full unless revoked due to a change in circumstance. This measure would allow for a reduction in an offender’s UPW total sentenced hours if they comply with the requirements of their order.
	UPW is the main punitive disposal for community-based sentences. It allows individuals to ‘payback’ to their local community and make reparations for their crimes. The delivery of an UPW requirement is known as ‘Community Payback’. It can be imposed on a person aged 18 or over who is convicted of an offence. The court must specify the number of hours the offender must undertake, which must be between 40 hours and 300 hours. Hours are typically completed through group placements supervised by an UPW supervisor, but some individual placements are available.
	UPW can be included as part of a Community Order (CO) or a Suspended Sentence Order (SSO). Offenders can also be sentenced to a standalone UPW requirement (only for COs), where UPW is the sole requirement attached to their order.
	The scheme established under this measure would operate as follows:
Offenders must complete 25% of their sentenced UPW hours without incurring an unacceptable absence or being sent home for unacceptable behaviour before they can start earning a reduction.
Once eligible, offenders will get a 50% discount on all eligible UPW hours worked. In practice, this means a 30-minute reduction is applied for every UPW hour worked.
The maximum reduction that an offender could get under the scheme would be 25% of the total sentenced hours.
Any unacceptable absences or instances of an offender being sent home from the UPW placement for unacceptable behaviour will be treated as non-compliance and will not earn a reduction for that day or after. Offenders can keep the reduction they have earned from UPW sessions prior to the unacceptable absence or instance of non-compliance.
UPW hours added to COs or SSOs following breach (i.e. penalty hours) are out of scope for the UPW reduction measure.
The Secretary of State would have the power in secondary legislation to set and amend the scheme criteria, including eligibility and exclusions, as well as reduction rate.
Policy background Part 2: Management of offenders after sentencing Community Order requirements and community requirements Number of hours of work required by unpaid work requirement