Each working party will be made up of one supervisor - funded by the Community Safety Partnership - and up to eight Community Payback offenders.

The working parties will carry out work requested by Dacorum's Neighbourhood Action Steering Groups, Dacorum Borough Council and other community safety partners.

Jeff Spencer, Community Payback Project Manager for Herts Probation Trust, said: "This is an excellent example of joint partnership working enabling offenders who have been given unpaid work orders to make reparation in the community."

Offenders wear high-visibility Community Payback vests while they're working, so people can see they're paying back for their crimes.

Each year in Hertfordshire more than 100,000 payback hours are worked - equivalent to £500,000 of free labour for local organisations, charities and schools.

Chair of the Dacorum Community Safety Partnership, Cllr Colette Wyatt-Lowe said: "This is an exciting initiative for Dacorum that has the prospect of doing a lot of good with projects throughout the neighbourhoods. It will also help to reassure residents that offenders are making amends and giving back to the communities they have affected."

Places in Dacorum that had already benefited from Community Payback, before the Agreement was signed, include: Mountbatten Lodge and Queensway House elderly people's homes, Margaret Lloyd Park, Randalls Park, the Nickey Line, Grovehill Community Centre and Youth Club, Apsley Community Centre, Apsley Lock, Bovingdon School and Scouts Hut with sensory garden and adventure park and Grovehill and Adeyfield Adventure Playgrounds.