INVISIBLE HELP FROM THE OMBUDSMAN assessment of whether there were grounds for opening a case regarding a resource focused process, flexible job or early retirement pension. The municipality brought the case to its interdisciplinary rehabilitation team, and the team concluded that it was not currently possible to point to any job functions which the man was able to do but that his return to the work force at some point in the future could not be ruled out. However, this prospect depended on the man not drinking and on his compliance with an addiction treatment course. The case was then passed on to the municipality job centre where the man was to appear. Upon enquiry he was told that there was merely a recommendation from the municipal rehabilitation team and that the municipality had not made a decision in the case which could be appealed. The man wanted a decision from the municipality (a refusal) so that he could appeal. But that was not an easy thing to get. The man complained to the Ombudsman who first referred him to the municipality’s mayor. The reply from the municipality was that the man could not appeal against the rehabilitation team’s recommendation and that he would not receive any detailed written communication in that respect. The man complained again to the Ombudsman who considered whether the municipality’s course of action should be put on the same footing as a formal refusal for a resource focused process, flexible job or early retirement pension. The Ombudsman then sent the case on to the National Social Appeals Board which subsequently made a substantive decision in a similar case. It is now laid down in the Board’s decision in principle No. 26-14 that the municipalities shall make a decision on the basis of the rehabilitation team’s recommendation ‒ regardless of whether the recommendation is positive or negative in relation to the individual in question. Subsequently, the National Social Appeals Board ensured that the municipality made a decision in the man’s case. WAS THERE A CHANNEL OF COMPLAINT OR NOT? In a third example of a ‘rejected case’, a woman received compensation benefits when her municipality could not find her a job for seniors. At some point, the municipality stopped the woman’s compensation benefit because she was not available to the job market and was not able to work full hours for health reasons. The municipality wrote to the woman that the decision could not be appealed to the National Social Appeals Board. 59