Information for beneficiaries

The Community Service scheme exists to give offenders the opportunity to put something back into their community and provide charities and other voluntary organisations with additional labour resources to help with their work.

It is offenders giving their time to the community, allowing beneficiaries to do more of what they do best.

It is entirely free and there is no charge for the work undertaken by offenders.

The Probation Service is happy to consider all types of work from one-off projects to more regular work. You may need just one person to help for a few hours each week, or a group of people to undertake a larger project.

Community Service is generally undertaken in one of two ways, with offenders working either as part of a team (work party) which is directly supervised by Probation staff or on an individual basis, reporting to and supervised directly by the beneficiary. Sometimes work is undertaken for a beneficiary on an individual basis, but with the offender working in the Probation office. 

An introduction leaflet for beneficiaries has been produced which gives more information about the work undertaken. For individual placements, there is also a Memorandum of Understanding which includes a Frequently Asked Questions section. Both these can be downloaded from the box opposite.

If you have a current or future project or even ongoing work and you think we might be help then we would be pleased to hear from you.