How the Unpaid Work Scheme helped communities

This article is more than 3 years old

The 'Unpaid Work Scheme' has been helping to improve communities across the South & West Fife Area.

The Unpaid Work Scheme offers offenders an alternative to a custodial sentence and gives back to communities.

Across Fife, 86,664 hours of unpaid work was completed by 812 participants between April 2019 and March 2020. Using the Living Wage of £9.30 per hours as a guide, this equates to £805,975 of financial benefit to Fife communities and recipients. Males represent the large percentage of participants with 706 Orders imposed on men and 106 women.

Providing this service gives a positive outcome for participants as well as communities. Trainers work with participants to identify and address various issues, help them to improve areas of their life and reduce the number who go on to re-offend.

Some of the projects carried out over this year include:

  • Regular Litter Picking across SW Fife. Areas along much of the Fife Coastal Path (Kincardine to Aberdour); Torryburn beach and car parks; Park Road West children’s play area; Dalgety Bay open ground playing fields at Regents Way; Dalgety Bay recycling centre and Hillend Industrial Estate; Oakley and Blairhall on the West Fife Cycle Way.
  • Gardening and ground clearance at Inverkeithing High School; Fere Gait in Kincardine; Sir George Bruce Road in Oakley; Culross various areas around the town; and many more.
  • Painting projects included High Valleyfield Club; Kincardine Old Peoples Centre; Admiralty Road Rosyth and Walter Hay Court

Councillor Alice McGarry, Convener of the South and West Fife Area Committee, said “Visibility of the projects plays an important part in raising the awareness of the positive contribution Unpaid Work can play. From feedback we’ve gathered we can see that recipients are, on the whole, extremely pleased with the quality and range of work provided.

“It should give a sense of pride to all those who worked on these projects and the benefits they bring to communities.”

This site at High Valleyfield was cleared of weeds to prepare the ground for seeding with wild flowers.

Site over grown with weeds

Site cleared ready for seeding with wild flowers