18,000 hours of free labour by convicts in Brighton and Hove

2:00pm Monday 20th July 2009

By Andy Chiles

A council has been accused of getting convicted criminals to do jobs that should be carried out by its own staff.

But Brighton and Hove City Council has insisted that the 18,000 hours of free labour carried out by crooks on community service this year had only been on projects which would not have otherwise been done.

It has put criminals to work making improvements to housing estates, car parks, subways and underpasses – and even painting the long-neglected seafront railings which residents have called to have restored.

The council said the projects had been beneficial to both the community and the offenders involved.

But opposition councillors said they were concerned the council was starting to arrange its budget around the free labour and would use the scheme to cut jobs.

At a full council meeting Councillor Warren Morgan, opposition Labour spokesman for environmental services, asked for a commitment that the council had not asked the city's probation service to use offenders in the "community payback team" to do work that would otherwise have been done by council staff.

He said offenders were only supposed to work on community projects identified by residents which were not within the council's usual remit.

Councillor Dee Simson, cabinet member for community affairs, said: "Residents take the lead on identifying projects to improve their areas and the communities which have been harmed by crime benefit directly from the work.

"In the period of January to May 2009 the city benefitted from 18,000 hours of unpaid work placements – this included work on many of our housing estates carrying out environmental improvements, the painting of car parks, the seafront railings, subways and underpasses.

She added that the work was being carried out to improve the way communities could nominate projects and said the council was committed to gaining maximum benefit.

When questioned by Councillor Morgan on whether the community payback scheme would lead to any jobs being lost, or any positions not being filled if they became vacant in future, Councillor Simson gave assurances that no positions would be cut.

The Community Payback Scheme was unveiled by Tony Blair in 2001 as a way to rehabilitate offenders. It has been in operation in Brighton and Hove since 2005.