statistics In the 1,591 cases which the Ombudsman rejected for the time being in 2012, the vast majority of complainants were thus able to return to the Ombudsman if they remained dissatisfied with the authorities’ decision on and/or processing of their case. In certain cases, the complaint was anonymous and therefore had to be rejected pursuant to section 13(2) of the Ombudsman Act (14 cases in 2012). In other cases, the approach turned out not to be an actual complaint, but an enquiry or simply material sent to the Ombudsman for his information (342 cases). In still other cases, it was necessary to ask the complainant to clarify his or her complaint, but the complainant did not respond, or the complainant withdrew his or her complaint (190 cases). We have combined all these situations in the statistical overview (item 1.4 in Table 2 overleaf). We had 546 such cases in 2012. Pursuant to section 16(1) of the Ombudsman Act, the Ombudsman decides him­self whether a complaint offers sufficient grounds for an actual investigation. The Ombudsman’s decision to reject a case is made after a review of the complaint and any material accompanying the complaint, but the Ombudsman is free to obtain case documents from the authorities before responding to the complainant with an explanation of why he has decided not to initiate an investigation. In 2012, the Ombudsman rejected 908 cases pursuant to section 16(1) of the Ombudsman Act. Table 2 overleaf contains information about the grounds registered for rejection, first for all cases and then for local and regional authority cases. 85