INVERCLYDE Council’s community payback order system for offenders spared prison by sheriffs has been broken for nearly a year, the Telegraph can reveal.

Social work officials who administer the scheme – which includes unpaid work directives – say that ‘varied and complex’ problems with the programme first emerged last November.

We told earlier this month how punishment orders were being disrupted due to a staffing crisis among supervisors who oversee lawbreakers ordered to complete community-based tasks.

The predicament was made public when it was stated during a court hearing that a cannabis grower had not completed any of the 180 hours handed down to him in April.

Last week, another offender told a sheriff he had been ‘stood down’ from a 100-hour community payback order (CPO) – imposed on him for verbally abusing a police call handler – ‘because of a lack of staff’.

Now Municipal Buildings chiefs say that nearly 30 applications have so far had to made to the court for time extensions to be granted in order to allow CPOs to be completed – and it appears more are likely to follow.

The council says that only three times has the programme been disrupted by ‘service pressures’ alone.

In a statement, a spokesman for Inverclyde’s health and social care partnership said: “Our unpaid work (UPW) service has been managing a number of varied and complex staffing issues since November 2015.

“The impact of these issues on the service has been compounded by the fact the unpaid work supervisors constitute a small staff group.

“In recent months the service has been engaged in a sustained period of recruitment which when completed will not only see our vacancies filled but also added resilience built into the service providing a degree of protection moving forward.”

The spokesman added: “Concerning the impact of the above issues on the ability of individuals to complete their unpaid work hours, this has resulted in 27 applications being made to the court to have the original time period for completing the hours imposed extended.

“Only in three instances were the reasons cited exclusively as a result of service pressures, the remainder and indeed the majority were as a result of a combination of individual service user and service issues.

“It will take a couple of months before the service is functioning at full capacity.”