Summaries of selected statements | 87 In addition, the Ombudsman could not criticise the refusal of the public transport operator to grant access to the information according to the principle of extended openness. 2018-12. Disciplinary warning for posts on Facebook was an infringement of the freedom of expression of public employees. No requirement to raise criticism internally first An employee of a municipal home care service criticised the manager and the working environment of the home care service in a post in a Facebook group for employees of the home care service. The employee criticised the manager of having hurled unjustified abuse at her and added that it was not the first time it had happened. She also stated that there had been several complaints about the manager and the working environment and that the trade union had therefore now called a meeting for all employees. The posts also became known to people outside the group, and the municipality summoned the employee to a disciplinary hearing. In the municipality’s opinion the wording and tone of her posts were too offensive and the posts contained undocumented information that there had been several complaints about the manager. The employee was subsequently given a written warning. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the employee’s statement that her manager had hurled unjustified abuse at her was clearly within the limits to the freedom of expression of public employees. In addition, he did not find that the comment that there had been several complaints overstepped the limits of this freedom of expression. The written warning was therefore a violation of the rules on freedom of expression for public employees. 2) T  he city of Aarhus had been elected ‘European Capital of Culture’ for 2017 by the EU Council of Ministers. Further, the Ombudsman criticised that the municipality had demanded at the disciplinary hearing that in future the employee contact the management or use the internal channels for criticism of conditions within the home care service. The Ombudsman recommended that the municipality reopen the case about the written warning and in this connection also make it clear to the employee that as a public employee she was entitled to express public criticism of the home care service without raising her criticism internally first. 2018-21. Foundation not subject to Access to Public Administration Files Act A newspaper article stated that the foundation Fonden Aarhus 2017 – which was, among other things, responsible for carrying out the European Capital of Culture 2017 project2 – had denied the newspaper access to information about how it was spending its budget of approximately DKK 500 million. The grounds given by the foundation for denying the newspaper access were that the foundation was not subject to the Access to Public Administration Files Act. One question to be addressed by the Ombudsman was whether the foundation was subject to the provision in section 3(1) paragraph (2) of the Access to Public Administration Files Act, under which the Act is applicable to all activities carried out by ‘independent institutions, associations, foundations etc. established under private law which are engaged in public sector activities on an extensive scale and are subject to intensive public regulation, intensive public supervision and intensive public control’ (unofficial translation).