96 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 The Ombudsman carried out an assessment of the Agency’s average actual processing time in 2016. As there is no legislation on the processing times of the Tax Appeals Agency for appeals against decisions on access of a party to a case to documents of the case, the Ombudsman made a specific assessment of whether the Agency’s average processing time for such appeals was acceptable. Factors which entered into the Ombudsman’s assessment included that the Tax Administration Act sets out a number of time limits, including for tax assessment and appeals, to be observed by both tax authorities and taxpayers, and that in a number of instances, a processing time which is considerably shorter than five months is necessary in order that these time limits can be observed. In addition, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that the Agency’s average processing time was not in line with the time limit set out by the Public Administration Act for decisions at first instance on access of a party to a case to documents of the case. In the Ombudsman’s opinion an average of just over five months therefore exceeded what was an acceptable processing time for appeals against decisions on access of a party to a case to documents of the case. After being contacted by the Ombudsman on the matter, the Tax Appeals Agency transferred these appeals to a newly established division for processing and gave priority to them in order that they would be processed as quickly as possible. L. PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE The following statement on a case concluded in 2017 has been published: 2017-26. Requirement to extract and grant access to certain information is also applicable to documents with speech notes A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because he had received a partial refusal from the Prime Minister’s Office of access to documents about the American whistle-blower Edward Snowden. In the Ombudsman’s opinion access to the documents to which the journalist’s complaint related could be denied under section 24(1) paragraph (2) of the Access to Public Administration Files Act on ministerial advice and assistance.