Aberdeen City Council defends community service team from critics

ABERDEEN City Council last night defended its community service team from criticism by politicians. Social work chiefs hit back after official figures showed criminals in the north-east take more than twice as long to complete community service orders compared to other parts of Scotland.

Councillor Jim Kiddie, social work convener for the city council’s Liberal Democrat-SNP administration, said the Scottish Government statistics were “out of date”.

He said it was “unfortunate” they had been used by Labour’s justice spokesman and north-east MSP Richard Baker to criticise the local authority’s performance.

The council admitted the figures were “disappointing” but said they had to be viewed in the context of more community service orders being imposed by the courts.

Last month, the council’s social work director, Fred McBride, hailed improvements in the community service team after it was highly commended at a national awards ceremony.

Less than a year earlier, Sheriff James Tierney had ordered a senior council official to appear before him to explain why an offender had carried out just two-and-a-half hours of a 280-hour community service order, months after it was imposed at the city’s sheriff court.

The council was forced to apologise for a “catalogue of errors” that led to the blunder, but Mr McBride said the department had made major improvements since then.

Mr McBride added: “Now, with new task supervisors in post, this means more offenders can be put on work placements.

“In addition, we are increasing the number of offenders in each work party and we’re also exploring the potential for offenders to carry out unpaid work in communities on other days throughout the week.”