Ombudsman Arlene Brock found 30 examples of maladministration in Government and other public bodies in the last year.Her latest annual report, tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday, cites cases involving 16 different departments, quangos or boards.Examples outlined in her report include the failure of the Department of Labour and Training to properly investigate and complete employment complaints, delays in processing applications at the Department of Planning and the inadvertent registration of two charities with “substantially similar names” by the Charities Commission.Ms Brock received almost double the volume of complaints from August 2009 to July 2010 than in previous years and yesterday attributed the “huge spike” to increased public confidence in her office.“The big story for us is that we have steadily increased the number of complaints,” she said. “This last year was a huge increase.”There were 248 complaints filed last year, compared to 143 the previous year and 129 in 2008.Ms Brock, an independent official who investigates complaints against public authorities, said the higher figure looked set to be repeated this year, with her office receiving an average of about 20 complaints a month since the summer.The Office of the Ombudsman referred 80 of the 248 complaints to other departments and handled 168 itself, as well as 54 cases still open from previous years.By the end of July 2010, it had closed 145 cases and 77 were still to be resolved.Ms Brock says in her report she received seven complaints from people left confused after filing employment complaints with the Department of Labour and receiving no formal letter on the outcome of their grievance.“The Ombudsman has repeatedly recommended that Labour practise adequate and clear communication in the form of written correspondence,” writes Ms Brock.She found the Department did not properly investigate the complaint of an expat who went to Labour after she was sacked from her job.Ms Brock highlights in her report the Department’s role as the “first and often only line of defence against oppression and intimidation of workers who may not feel comfortable approaching other levers of power that Bermudian workers may feel more able to access”.She states: “Labour must therefore ensure that its investigations are cognizant of power imbalances between employers and guest workers.”Maladministration was also found at Bermuda College, Bermuda Post Office, the Accountant General’s Office, the Department of Social Insurance, Bermuda Hospitals Board, the Health Insurance Department, the Bermuda Archives, the Registry General, the Board of Trustees of the Golf Courses, the Department of Operations and Engineering, the Transport Control Department, the Department of Health and the Department of Immigration..