11 Jørgen Steen Sørensen Parliamentary Ombudsman In my Annual Report for 2012 – my first year as Ombudsman – I outlined a number of ideas for modernising the institution. Many of those ideas were given more concrete expression and implemented in 2013, not least with regard to issues of structure, resources and efficiency. I will elaborate on this in more detail under the heading Faster processing of citizens’ cases. The year was also marked by the new Access to Public Administration Files Act. Under the heading The new Access to Public Administration Files Act, I will describe our cogitations and initiatives with regard to the new Act. As in previous years, there were cases in 2013 which stood out and drew special attention. I will outline a handful of these under the heading Special cases in 2013, and finally, under the heading The discussion on a ‘shift in norms’ in the Civil Service, I will reflect on the debate which – starting in 2013 – has emerged in the wake of a number of much-discussed cases involving key government departments. There were many other developments at the Ombudsman institution in 2013 which I am not able to go into in this article. Among other things, 2013 was the first whole year of operations for the new Children’s Division; a new concept for our monitoring activities was implemented; and we took some important steps with regard to our international activities, not least in the form of collaboration agreements with central Chinese authorities. More details about these developments can be found elsewhere in this Annual Report. Faster processing of citizens’ cases Long case processing times in the public administration are a general and significant problem – and are often the subject of criticism from the Ombudsman.