96 annual report 2010 The Ombudsman did not find grounds for criticising the local authority’s decision. In his assessment, the ban on the woman’s appearing in person was a decision within the meaning of the Public Administration Act. The Ombudsman found it regrettable that the local authority had not heard the woman as a party to the case before making the decision. He also found it regrettable that the local authority had not observed the duty to take notes pursuant to the Public Administration Act, as the local authority also included previous specific incidents in the grounds for issuing the ban on appearing in person. The Ombudsman criticised that the local authority had not described the nature of the threatening behaviour in its original decision and that the local authority only referred to these previous incidents when the woman’s representative later asked for an explanation. Regarding the decision concept, please see contrary outcome in Case No. 20092756-009, published in the 2010 Annual Report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman as Case No. 2010 20-2. (Case No. 2008-2963-009) 4. Recruitment for the secretariat of the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen Because of articles in the press the Ombudsman opened an own-initiative investigation of the recruitment procedures for a number of positions in the secretariat of the newly elected Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. Among other things, the Ombudsman criticised the City of Copenhagen’s manner of advertising the jobs and the deadlines for applications. He also criticised the job interview procedures, which in his opinion might strengthen the suspicion raised by the press that it had been decided beforehand who would get the jobs. The Ombudsman found no basis for criticising the new Lord Mayor’s part in the case. (Case No. 2010-0200-8102) 5. N  o documentation that local authority had informed citizen how and when to pay back surplus housing benefit. Reminder fee unwarranted. A local authority had imposed a reminder fee on a man in connection with the collection of surplus housing benefit. The man did not think that the local ­authority had provided guidance on how to pay the surplus housing benefit or sent him a giro transfer form with which to do so, and he therefore complained to the Ombudsman. The local authority then decided to waive the reminder fee.