Shortages in probation community staff leave sentences uncompleted

More than 5,500 unpaid work orders that form part of community sentences have not been completed more than two years after being handed down, with experts blaming "chronic understaffing" in the probation service.

- Haroon Siddique

Ordinarily the orders, which can be for between 40 and 300 hours, should be completed within 12 months. Figures show more than 15,100 orders not completed in that time in England and Wales, with 182 not delivered more than four years after sentencing.

The use of community sentences is to increase under government plans to scrap short jail terms for most offenders to alleviate prison overcrowding. Campaigners say the changes must come with more resources for the probation service.

Andy Keen-Downs, the chief executive of the Prison Advice and Care Trust, said: "These are worrying statistics that reveal the scale of some of the major challenges facing the probation service. Many of these problems can be traced back to the 25% budget cuts to the Ministry of Justice in the decade following 2010, alongside the ill-judged partprivatisation of probation when Christ Grayling was justice secretary.