The Ombudsman has launched a probe into a Government ministry over its ability to deal with allegations of abuse.

The Ombudsman’s office said the investigation into the unnamed ministry was launched last year because of a 2014 case which is still to be settled.

The watchdog’s annual report for last year said: “The systematic investigation has focused on the adequacy of a ministry’s administration of services for persons at risk of abuse and its investigations into claims of abuse.”

The report added: “The Ombudsman will consider publishing an anonymised decision report once the systematic investigation has concluded.”

The Ombudsman’s office received 126 complaints and 97 inquiries last year.

The office also handled 47 cases reported in previous years.

Victoria Pearman, the Ombudsman, said: “We inquired into matters such as the Department of Financial Assistance’s policies and procedures, communication of bus cancellation information by the Department of Public Transportation, and the Department of Education’s co-ordination of school learning support services.

“We also continued to prioritise senior abuse complaint oversight and follow-up on complaint handling oversight of financial institutions.”

Ms Pearman added a drive to strengthen the role of the Treatment of Offenders Board in how complaints are handled had not gone as well as she wanted.

She said: “We learnt belatedly the Ministry of National Security is reconsidering its position.

“This does not explain why little was done to progress the initiative as an agreement was reached to do so in 2016 and no progress was made.”

The report said 17 per cent of complaints received by the Ombudsman in 2017 came from prison inmates, up from 10 per cent in 2016.

The report detailed several complaints by prisoners, including that some were only able to file complaints by letter. One prisoner said the problem with the policy was that some inmates have literacy problems or have time-sensitive complaints.

The report said: “As accessibility is a core Ombudsman principle, the Ombudsman was deeply concerned the Department of Corrections would indefinitely provide inmates only one way to access our office.”

It was discovered that the letters-only policy had been enforced at one prison, where the only private phone was in an office with “sensitive and confidential material”.

A senior officer suggested the prison’s pin phone system could be used during recreation hours, with the Ombudsman’s office in a special category to ensure calls were not recorded.

Another prisoner raised concerns about a smoking ban in prisons in another complaint.

He said the policy was introduced without proper support for inmates addicted to nicotine.

The Department of Corrections said the Government-wide smoking ban which came into effect in August 2016 applied to prisons and notices were sent to inmates about educational and medical support, including classes and nicotine patches.

Another inmate complained the department had made a mistake over his release date.

The report said: “The challenge was the inmate served some of his current sentence while on remand a few years previously.

“Also while on remand the inmate had served separate periods of incarceration for unrelated offences.

“This made the inmate’s sentence calculation unusually challenging.”

The Ombudsman was told a prisoner’s earliest release date was set at two-thirds of the sentence, but the release can be set back for any disciplinary offences while incarcerated.

An Ombudsman’s investigation found that extra time added as punishment for disciplinary offences pushed the prisoner’s release date past the full sentence handed down by a court.

The report said: “As the latest release date is determined by the courts, corrections does not have the authority to increase an inmates sentence.

“As a result, the inmates earliest release date was recorded incorrectly.

“We alerted the department to this error, and they agreed to correct it immediately.”