57 Kirsten Talevski Senior Head of Division, Division 2 Since 1955, the Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman has kept a relatively sharp distinction between on the one hand substantively investigated cases and on the other hand rejected cases. Consequently, it appears from this Annual Report that the Ombudsman rejected more than 85 per cent of the cases in 2014. However, part of this picture is that the Ombudsman’s staff actually often help the citizens also in these cases, for example by passing the complaint on to the relevant appeals body or by returning the complaint to the concerned authority so that the complainant may get a detailed reason for the decision. We may also help the complainant by asking the authority to consider waiving a complaint deadline which has not been observed. Or we can help the complainant to highlight his or her most important arguments so that the authority will get a more clear understanding of the complaint. Therefore, many complainants whose cases are listed statistically as rejected do receive assistance from the Ombudsman in various ways. To designate all these complaint cases as ‘rejected cases’ can therefore give a skewed reflection of the reality. We have consequently decided to change this somewhat simplistic division between ‘substantively investigated’ and ‘rejected’ cases, starting with the 2015 Annual Report. EFFECTIVELY SINGLE UNDER THE SAME ROOF One example of a case where we helped but which figures under ‘rejected cases’ concerns an elderly married couple who had been separated for more than 20 years, as the husband had moved to Germany in 1989 and had there ended up living with and being cared for by the couple’s daughter. Both husband and wife received a single person’s pension and therefore a higher pension than they would have received as cohabitants.