60 ANNUAL REPORT 2015 In our experience, many authorities and probably also many journalists and citizens understand the extraction duty according to section 28(1), first sentence, to mean that access to sheer facts must be given, end of story. This is certainly understandable, but the ‘factual grounds’ have a broader meaning. If there were merely the duty to find and give the factual information as such, it would not be that difficult. As an example of factual information, the explanatory notes mention that ‘on a motorway, 20,000 cars pass by on a daily basis’. The difficulties arise, because the facts are not always as easy to spot as in the example of the amount of cars on a motorway. If you take a closer look at the Act and its legislative history, you can see that the concept ‘information on the factual grounds for a case’ in section 28(1), first sentence, has two principal meanings: Firstly, it means information which obviously is factual, for example the information about the 20,000 cars. Secondly, it means – in the words of the explanatory notes – ‘other information which contributes to supplementing the case’s evidential grounds or is otherwise provided in order to provide clarity in regard to the factual grounds of the case [unauthorised translation]’. Thus, it is not sufficient to look at the content of the information – whether it is factual or not. It is also necessary to look at the function of the information in the relevant case. Simply stated, this kind of information can be referred to as ‘functional facts’. In this case, we are talking about information of a more subjective nature. In addition to this, the public can under certain circumstances get access to external and internal professional assessments which are tied to the case in question. This appears from section 28(1), second sentence, and section 29 of the Access to Public Administration Files Act. Interestingly enough, however, it is not the latter issues that cause problems in practice – at least not in the cases which are submitted to the Ombudsman institution. In contrast, the ‘functional facts’ category does. By this, we do not mean ‘professional’ statements within the meaning of the Act (which must be assessed pursuant to section 28(1), second sentence, or section 29 on external and internal professional assessments). On the contrary, we mean all the other kinds of statements that may occur in a case. These may be the authorities’ own statements as well as statements which originate from other authorities or from citizens and to which the documents refer.