30 | Case No. 18/05566 A mother complained about her son being expelled from his school course at a vocational educational centre. The mother wrote to the Ombudsman that her son had been sent a withdrawal form without notice and subsequently been turned down when he showed up at the centre. The mother also wrote that the centre did not return telephone calls and did not take them seriously. Case Nos. 18/02679 and 19/01918 CASES A citizen requested access to minutes of a meeting drawn up by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority. However, the Financial Supervisory Authority informed the Ombudsman that no minutes existed. Therefore, the Ombudsman turned down a further investigation of the citizen’s complaint. Later on, the Financial Supervisory Authority wrote to the Ombudsman that it had found some handwritten notes from the meeting in a physical archive and had given the notes to the citizen and had regretted the mistake. This made the Ombudsman ask the Financial Supervisory Authority to account for why the physical archive had not been searched previously and how it was to be assured that a similar situation could not arise again. After having received the Financial Supervisory Authority’s report, the Ombudsman replied that the process had not been satisfactory. The Ombudsman investigates complaints based on the written material of a case, hence depending on the information he receives from the authorities being correct and sufficient. The authorities are therefore required to provide the information and documents which the Ombudsman requests. The Ombudsman could not help with the complaint about the vocational educational centre. This was because the centre was not a public authority, nor one of the private institutions which are within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. The Ombudsman can only consider complaints about public administrative authorities and certain private institutions. Sometimes, a closer investigation is needed in order to determine if an institution is within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. Case No. 19/00029 A dentist had had the ‘right to independent selfemployment’ revoked so that he was only allowed to work under supervision of another dentist. The decision was effective for two years, and after that the dentist could be independently self-employed again unless the Danish Patient Safety Authority had decided to file a lawsuit before then. Two and a half years later, the decision still showed on the authorisation register even though the lawsuit filed by the Patient Safety Authority had been dropped. The dentist complained to the Ombudsman, who asked the Patient Safety Authority to explain to the dentist why the decision had not been removed from the register. The Patient Safety Authority then removed the decision and regretted that this had not happened when the lawsuit had been dropped. Sometimes an enquiry from the Ombudsman to the authority can solve the citizen’s problem.