24 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 A DIFFICULT TASK However, for public authorities the task of guiding citizens can be difficult. When as a case officer you are dealing with a case involving an administrative decision, you are reasonably in control of the situation. You can consult the parties to the case. You can obtain information from other authorities. You can check facts and legal rules. You can (and must) postpone a decision if you do not think that the case has been adequately investigated. It is different when citizens ask for guidance. Here, the process will often be more informal, and the case more sparsely investigated. For instance, citizens will often contact the authority in person or over the telephone. And often – if the other tasks of the day are also to be managed – the case officer has to more or less reply on the spot, knowing full well that the reply may greatly impact the citizen and determine how he or she acts. WHAT IF IT GOES WRONG? An important question is what happens when authorities’ guidance turns out to be wrong. Meaning what if an authority has inadvertently given an erroneous or misguiding reply so that the citizen has got into trouble – whose risk is it? Let us first take an example from a specific case which we investigated in 2017 – and then see what the consequences can be. Back in 2014, a man telephoned the Danish Immigration Service and asked whether his live-in partner receiving cash benefit could affect his chances of being granted a residence permit of indefinite duration. The Immigration Service replied that it would not affect his chances. But because his partner received cash benefit, the man was automatically paid supplementary cash benefit. This followed from the then current provisions of the Act on an Active Social Policy. And according to the Aliens Act, persons who had received public welfare assistance within the last three years pursuant to, among others, the Act on an Active Social Policy could not generally be granted a residence permit of indefinite duration. The Immigration Service therefore refused the man’s application. The Ombudsman stated that the guidance by the Immigration Service did not live up to the requirements of section 7(1) of the Public Administration Act.