Introduction 1. Introduction In 2013, the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) and its commissions were able to successfully continue its previous work as NPM. The AOB also, and above all, ensured that the previous year’s realignment took hold, enabling new roles to apply efficient administration practice. It should be noted that in July 2012, the AOB was entrusted by the Federal Constitution with the task to protect and promote the observance of human rights and of the rights of persons with disabilities in Austria and it assumed these new duties as National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) jointly with the commissions it established. The AOB gives account on its activities as NPM in a special report. In addition to its national tasks, the AOB also plays an important international role. This results in three main priorities, illustrated in more detail below: (1) As an institution protecting citizens’ rights, the AOB must help citizens to obtain their rights if they feel that public administration has treated them unfairly. Investigating individual complaints also serves as an indicator of the administration’s operation and can point towards deficits or undesirable trends in public administration. Finally, the administration is monitored to promote transparent, efficient and citizen-friendly procedures as well as clear decision-making processes. Efficient and citizenfriendly administration (2) The AOB‘s preventive activities aim to prevent violations of human rights and of the rights of persons with disabilities, whenever possible, or at least to make such violations improbable. For this purpose, the commissions set up by the AOB carry out comprehensive, routine visits to places of detention and observe police operations. The commissions’ findings help to identify deficits in the system based on individual cases, which could constitute a latent risk for human rights violations and therefore require rapid and efficient responses. Preventive activities do not need a trigger but run routinely. NPM activity to protect human rights (3) For years, the AOB has encouraged international co-operation, a fact which is also reflected in the International Ombudsman Institute (IOI), whose General Secretariat is located at the premises of the AOB. Cross-border networks gained further importance when the AOB accepted its new tasks as National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). An exchange of experiences with other NPM institutions must now be ensured, so that comparable methods can be developed for monitoring activities. These activities allow Austria to meet its obligation to participate in asserting human rights standards across the world. International networking The need for monitoring increased further in the reporting year: 19,249 people approached the AOB. This is the largest number of complaints in the AOB‘s history, and an increase of nearly a quarter compared to the year before (2012: 15,649). In 4,000 cases, the AOB was not the right point of contact. However, the AOB offers advice and information even when it is strictly speaking not responsible. It is extremely important to the AOB to provide at least some clarification to those citizens who contacted the AOB in matters which do not fall within its mandate. Number of complaints up significantly 7