A TRADE union chief has heaped more praise on a community payback scheme in Worcester but is worried about the jobs its participants are doing.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, watched 11 offenders picking up litter on the A449 between Sixways and Claines to see for himself the set-up between West Mercia Probation Trust and Worcester City Council.

Though he was impressed with the work being done Mr Fletcher said: “I came here because I needed to be satisfied offenders aren’t replacing staff because community payback schemes must not do tasks that put other people out of work.

“I’ve heard about renovating hanging baskets in Worcester and painting bollards but before they did this who did the work? Or did it just never get done?

“I’ve not yet had an answer to that.”

Councillor Roger Knight, deputy leader of Worcester City Council and cabinet member for cleaner and greener, said he was certain there is no problem with the agreement.

“All of the programmes undertaken otherwise would not have been done,” he said. “Our budget resources are not the same as they have been in the past which means we have had to tighten the focus of our activities.

“The services that they have contributed to we would probably not have been able to afford to do.

“Taking the A449 scheme as an example, that was largely done by volunteers.

“We had a small window of opportunity to do the work but with the community payback scheme there as well we were able to cover a much larger stretch of the road than we could have done with smaller resources.

“This is a good thing. It’s a payback to the community, in full view of the community, for crimes against the community and I think it works very well.”

We previously reported in your Worcester News how prisons and probation minister Crispin Blunt MP held Worcester’s community payback scheme up as a “good example” following a visit in March and Mr Fletcher agreed the city is a cleaner place as a result of the work.

He said if agreements like this do not work then there will be even more pressure for the probation service to be privatised, as is currently being mooted by the Government.

Mr Fletcher is against that idea, though, as he does not think private companies have the skills and expertise to supervise such work safely and effectively.

On Wednesday a mattress, a CD collection and a car door were among the more unusual items of rubbish recovered from the side of the A449.

A team of 30-strong volunteers comprised of Worcester City Council staff and the payback offenders collected almost 100 bags of rubbish during the two-day litter-pick.

John Bond, environmental protection officer at Worcester City Council, said: “Unusual items of litter included a mattress, car bumper and vehicle door, innumerable wheel hub caps, a CD collection and a considerable amount of polystyrene.

“The cleaning teams saw a number of instances where waste, such as polystyrene, was blown off the back of commercial vehicles speeding along the road.

“A number of motorists were observed throwing litter such as sweet wrappers and cans out of their car windows and some drivers using lay-bys were also seen to throw their litter on the ground even though litter bins were provided nearby.”