Most complaints about Canberra's jail relate to concerns about the time prisoners get to spend outside, the ACT Ombudsman has revealed.
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Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe received 17 complaints about the Alexander Maconochie Centre in the last three months of 2018, compared with 11 in the previous quarter.
His report, tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, said more than half of the complaints raised concerns about what "was considered to be an excessive number of lock ins within the jail and access to outside time".
"The office has raised these matters with ACT Correctional Services both directly and via other relevant oversight agencies, including the ACT Inspector of Correctional Services. We will continue to liaise closely with ACT Correctional Services on these matters," Mr Manthorpe wrote.
The report echoes that of the Productivity Commission's recent report on government services, which found ACT inmates only had an average of 8.9 hours outside their cells per day in 2016-17 and 8.4 hours in 2017-18, below the Australian average of nine hours.
Prisoners in the jail's transitional release centre were allowed out of their cells 11.5 hours per day, below the Australian average of 12.5 hours and most other jurisdictions, where they are allowed out of their cells for around 15 hours per day.
Other complaints about the jail related to difficulty accessing funds and missing property.
The Ombudsman's job is to investigate complaints from people who believe they have been treated unfairly or unreasonably by an ACT government agency.
Most of the complaints they received in the last quarter of 2018 were about public housing, rising 25 per cent on the previous three months to 20.
"Complaints received this quarter related to access to public housing including from individuals who appeared to be at risk of homelessness and or family violence," Mr Manthorpe wrote.
"Existing public housing tenants complained about lack of maintenance, poor security and debt issues. Neighbourhood disputes also gave rise to a number of complaints."
The Ombudsman also wrote to Housing ACT about possible systemic issues stemming from some of the complaints and investigations undertaken.
One Housing ACT tenant complained to the Ombudsman after their request to the maintenance provider to fix a garage door was ignored for months.
"The garage allowed direct access to the ground floor of an apartment complex where disabled and vulnerable people lived," Mr Manthorpe wrote.
"As a result the broken door was a significant security issue. Two days after our office referred this matter to Housing ACT the garage door was repaired."
The Ombudsman also raised issues with Housing ACT about allocation procedures for detainees who are granted parole from jail.
The office also has oversight of the ACT's reportable conduct scheme.
The Ombudsman received 44 notifications in the three months to December, an increase of 27 per cent on the same period the previous year.
Forty-eight per cent of complaints related to government and non government schools, 18 per cent to kinship and foster care, 11 per cent to religious organisations, 12 per cent to education and care service provides and 7 per cent to residential care organisations.
"Ill treatment of a child involving hostile use of force remains the most common allegation type with misconduct of a sexual nature and ill treatment emotional abuse being the next most common allegation categories," Mr Manthorpe wrote.
However there was no action taken after the Ombudsman's final report in 44 per cent of cases. Twenty-two per cent of cases resulted in training, 12 per cent in performance monitoring and managing, 6 per cent in a letter of warning, 4 per cent in a formal apology, while only 2 per cent of resulted in the person being fired.
An earlier version of this story stated prisoners in most other jurisdictions are allowed out of their cells for 15 hours per day. This is true only for prisoners in minimum security.
