Dry rules provide quality in public administration | 29 Skanderborg Municipality has now launched a number of initiatives intended to ensure against similar errors in the future. That is, of course, good. Duty to take notes and keep records as part of the administration’s back bone The rules on the duty to take notes and keep records are laid down particularly in sections 13 and 15 of the Danish Act on Access to Public Administration Files. The fundamental provision on the duty to take notes in section 13 of the Act says, among other things, that in cases involving a decision an authority must as quickly as possible make a note of the contents of information about the factual basis of the case which the authority is made aware of, either verbally or in other ways (unless the information already appears from the case documents). The provision also states that an authority must, as quickly as possible, make a note on ‘important case processing steps’, which do not otherwise appear from the case. The fundamental provision on keeping records in section 15 of the Act says, among other things, that documents received or sent by an administrative authority as part of administrative case processing in connection with the authority’s activity must be recorded if they are important to the case or otherwise to the processing of the case. This must be done as soon as possible. that the information is under control, and that it is retrievable when needed. They also contribute towards the subsequent clarification of the course of events in a case. And they support the possibility of access to public files. Maybe it is easier to understand the importance of the rules if you imagine that they were not there. With regard to the duty to take notes, this would, for instance, mean that the processing of a case could be maintained at a verbal level without the possibility of subsequent documentation of the events in a case or without the possibility of access to public files. And that the authority – when the decision had to be made – had to base it on what perhaps successive staff could more or less randomly remember. With regard to keeping records, it would, for instance, mean that the documents in the case could be stored in a scattered and random fashion – some on the computer, some in the drawer, a bit with other staff and a bit at home. So the rules on the duty to take notes and keep records are not there for their own sake. They underpin important regards for making correct decisions, openness in the public administration and the possibility of subsequent responsibility. In that way, they are part of the back bone of good administration. Why do we have these rules? Case processing errors in a case from Randers To a large extent, the rules on the duty to take notes and keep records serve the same purpose. They ensure, for instance, that there is clarity as to what the information in the case is, Specific cases are always the best illustrations of the importance of general principles. So let us take one more – a case from Randers, another town in Jutland, concluded in November 2018. Here, we have another kind of formal rules.