The data on Breach Applications In Community Payback Orders does not contain any directly identifiable personal information.

Extensive quality assurance is conducted to ensure the data received from local authorities is as accurate as possible. Part of this involves the data loading system putting the data through a number of checks and identifying issues with the data which local authorities then need to look at and fix. Checks are also made by the Scottish Government to ensure there is consistency across the data for different years for every individual order.

These statistics are considered of good quality as they come from recording systems which local authorities use for case management and internal monitoring. The data has, in addition, been quality assured by the Scottish Government via extensive accuracy checks, including identifying any major differences between the current year and previous years. In 2012-13, the gender breakdowns are estimated for 3 councils - Aberdeen City, Fife and Moray.

Community payback orders were introduced for offences committed on or after 1st February 2011. Numbers on breach applications for orders terminated were first collected in 2012-13 and have been collected on the same basis since then.

This data brings together gender breakdowns for all years in the one place.

These statistics help provide trends related to the workload of community payback orders and the type of orders which local authorities deal with.

As a large volume of data is collected at unit level for both community payback orders and drug treatment & testing order, these statistics are normally updated around January or February.

Data for previous years are revised annually as a result of revised information being received from local authorities. The figures for 2020-21 for Renfrewshire were originally published as estimates but were changed following the receipt of the actual data.