55 Case No. 14/01839 Case No. 14/01605 The school library had sent many reminders that a boy in the second form should return some books he had borrowed. Now the municipality was involved, demanding compensation for the books, but the boy’s father did not think that he should be held responsible for the books his son borrowed at the school. The father asked the Ombudsman to consider the question of liability for compensation in the case. However, the Ombudsman does not normally consider compensation issues, and he also rejected this case. The reason is that the Ombudsman cannot question witnesses, and it would therefore be difficult for him to come to a decision as to any liability for compensation. The Ombudsman’s case processing is usually based on written material from citizens and authorities. Case No. 14/01717 A citizen was dissatisfied because the municipality had given its consent to the discharge of surface water from a rainwater basin into a stream close by his home. He complained to the Environmental Board of Appeal about the decision and that he had not been consulted as a party to the case. The complainant paid a complaint fee of DKK 500 which would be refunded if his complaint proved to be justified. The Board decided that the citizen’s complaint was not justified, but that it was correct that he should have been consulted as a party to the case. The citizen now lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman and questioned the complaint fee too: ‘Since the decision was partly in favour of my complaint that I should have been consulted as party to the case, I feel that I should receive a refund of my 500 DKK’, he wrote. The Ombudsman was unable to assist the citizen with the complaint regarding the decision as such, but he asked the Board to clarify the question about the complaint fee to the citizen. The Board replied that there had been a mistake and that the money would be refunded. It is free of charge to lodge a complaint with the Ombudsman, and everybody can complain. In 2014, the Ombudsman opened 4,675 cases based on received complaints. A father was angry because his ex-wife had taken their children out of their private independent school and now wished to enrol them in a local municipal school. He said so when the local municipal school sent him a consultation note on the change of school. For the sake of the children, the headmaster suggested that the children continued to attend the private independent school, but the mother rejected the suggestion. The solution to the matter was that the children were enrolled in the local municipal school. The father pointed out that parents must agree on essential decisions in regard to their children when they have joint custody. However, the authorities informed him that since the children were entitled to schooling under the authority of the Folkeskole Act (the municipal school Act), it was in accordance with the law to enrol them in the local municipal school in the school district where they lived if the parents could not agree on a different solution. It was the Ombudsman’s opinion that he could not criticise the authorities’ decision, and he therefore closed the case. If the Ombudsman does not think there is a prospect that a complaint will give occasion for criticism or recommendation, he may close the case without asking the authorities for a statement. Case No. 14/00564 The Complaints Board for Veterinary Services covered up the veterinarian’s mistakes, a dog owner wrote to the Ombudsman when his complaint to the Board that his dog had not received the right treatment was not upheld. This meant that the dog owner could not get compensation. The dog had sustained corrosive burns in its oesophagus after an operation where it had vomited during the anaesthetic. In the dog owner’s opinion, the veterinarian surgeon should have cleaned the dog’s throat during the operation, but the Complaints Board did not agree that the damage was due to a procedural error by the veterinarian surgeon. As the Complaints Board for Veterinary Services is a private board and not part of the public administration, the Ombudsman was unable to consider the complaint. Normally, the Ombudsman only investigates complaints about the public administration.