At present around 435,000 people, or around 5% of Austria’s population, receive Federal or state care allowances. Every year the AOB conducts around 250 investigative proceedings in cases where parties or their family members have complained about concrete care allowance entitlement levels. Since Federal and state care allowance legislation was passed in 1993, AOB has built up an overview of around 5,000 concrete care entitlement assessments. Among these, one in five complaints has been justified. Facts and figures At present 280 different offices, including municipalities, pay care allowances. The AOB is calling for Austria-wide “quality assurance in the assessment process”, to ensure uniform quality standards. For many years, AOB has also been calling for complementary social advisory services oriented to the specific situations, needs and options of individuals requiring care and their caregiving relatives. Applications for social services or additional funds for therapy and medical aids that can relieve the burden on relatives have to be submitted separately to various different authorities. For many caregivers, this becomes an intolerable burden. At present there is no “one-stop-shop” specialising in individual care needs and covering all branches of social insurance, state-specific claims and support, and needs-based non-cash benefits. AOB calls for further measures In her day-to-day work, Ombudswoman Terezija Stoisits is often confronted with problems relating to implementation of the Austrian Citizenship Act, and therefore organised an experts’ symposium on citizenship law, held on 30 November 2010. The symposium covered problems with implementation of the Citizenship Act in the individual states, and the socio-political impact of immigration legislation. Participants included representatives from relevant authorities, academic experts and representatives from NGOs. Experts' symposium on citizenship Since 2006, the number of complaints relating to naturalisation submitted to the AOB has increased dramatically. In 2007 alone the number of complaints doubled. The background to this are the 2005 legislative amendments, which entered into force in March 2006 without transitional provisions. This has had a major impact on how naturalisation has been implemented in practice. In 2004, 41,645 people became naturalised Austrian citizens; by contrast, in 2009, the figure had fallen to around 8,000. Facts and figures 15