84 | Annual Report 2018 and the Ombudsman agreed with the Ministry that the two situations were also not to be treated identically under the principle of administrative law on equality. decision on repayment in the specific case had been made on an inadequate basis because it had overlooked the accounts which the man had sent in. The Ombudsman therefore could not criticise the Ministry’s decision. However, when changing its decision on repayment, the Committee had not given the man an explanation of the error or apologised for the course of events resulting from the error. The Ombudsman agreed with the Committee that it should have done so – especially in the light of the amount which the man was originally ordered to repay. Ministry of Education No statements on cases concluded in 2018 have been published. Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Interior The following statements on cases concluded in 2018 have been published: 2018-3. It is good administrative practice to explain and apologise for a significant case processing error to the citizen involved A self-employed man, who owned several companies, went out of business in 2009. He subsequently received unemployment benefit from 2009 until 2011. However, the Employment Committee of the National Social Appeals Board made a decision in 2015 that the man was to repay DKK 466,090 of unemployment benefit before tax and interest because he had not sold his holding company or changed its objects clause to ‘asset administration’. During the repayment case with the authorities, the man pointed out that there had been no activity in the holding company since 2009. As documentation, he had sent in accounts and other documents. After being contacted by the Ombudsman on the matter, the Employment Committee changed its decision, and the demand for repayment of unemployment benefit was dropped. The way in which the case had been handled by the Committee caused the Ombudsman to ask the Committee supplementary questions on his own initiative about its practice in cases of this type. In its statement to the Ombudsman, the Committee explained that its As the Employment Committee had subsequently explained and apologised for the error, the Ombudsman took no further action on the matter. 2018-11. Processing time of State Supervisory Authority of Municipalities and Regions. Requirements on content of updates A man complained to the Ombudsman about the processing time of the State Supervisory Authority of Municipalities and Regions (which supervises municipalities’ and regions’ observance of the legislation applying specifically to public authorities). The Ombudsman stated that a processing time by the Supervisory Authority of more than 26 months until its decision not to open a case with the municipality about which the man had complained was too long. The processing time was far longer than the target average processing times for the Supervisory Authority for 2015, 2016 and 2017. The man was given five updates by the Supervisory Authority while it was processing his case. Several of these updates were given following a request from the man for a reply to his complaint about the municipality. In the last two updates, the Supervisory Authority stated that it was not possible to give details of when a decision could be expected. The Ombudsman stated that the Supervisory Authority should have sent updates to the man sooner than