There was a 6% increase in the number of community payback orders issued in Angus last year.
During 2013/14 384 CPOs were made on 238 people, an increase of 22 on the previous year’s figures.
A total of 27,285 hours of unpaid work was imposed with 204 of the CPOs, an average of 90 hours each. Supervision orders were a requirement on 146 of the cases.
The types of unpaid work undertaken in Angus included gardening, responding to vandalism, furniture collections and deliveries on behalf of Forfar Resource Store, clearing snow, helping charity shops to move stock and picking up litter.
Work also took place at Sidlaw Path Network and on improvements to derelict areas in Forfar, including landscaping, painting railings and crafting gardens.
A community garden in Arbroath has continued to be developed, with a female offender team attending to the garden on a weekly basis.
Steps have also been taken to establish a bike repair project.
The number of high-tariff structured deferred sentences issued in Angus almost doubled to 88 in 2013/14.
There were 28 low-tariff structured deferred sentences last year.
A report by Alan Hope, service manager of Angus Criminal Justice Service, states: “This makes a significant demand on resources given the intensive nature of high-tariff structured deferred sentences; however, their usage has been extremely effective, particularly in regard to women offenders.”
The management of women offenders in Angus is highly-praised and much-respected, particularly due to the work of various agencies through the Glen Isla Project. Angus council has agreed to back the project for a further two years, on the basis that funding sources can be identified and secured. Current Scottish Government funding concludes at the end of this month.
Angus Council will take over responsibility for the delivery of social work criminal justice services (CJS) once the Tayside Community Justice Authority (TCJA) is dissolved in 2017.
Praising the support service, Police Scotland’s Commander for Angus, Chief Inspector Gordon Milne, said: “The Glen Isla Project and other initiatives are now impacting on some of the social issues in Angus which for years have been quite literally untouchable.”