62 Soon after her birth, a girl was compulsorily removed from her parents and placed with a foster family. The local authority allowed the parents to spend 1½ hours with the girl every other week, while the grandparents were allowed to spend an hour with the girl every other month. Their time together had to be supervised by a representative of the local authority as well as the girl’s foster family. When the little girl was a couple of years old, the two grandmothers lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman. They wanted to spend time with their granddaughter more frequently – and without supervision. They wanted their own children – the girl’s mother and father – to have the same right. The Ombudsman obtained a power of attorney from the girl’s parents, reviewed the complaint and documents and eventually forwarded the material to the local authority’s committee for children and young people. Decisions on contact with children placed with foster parents are sometimes made by local authority officials and at other times by the committee for children and young people. All local authorities have such a committee, which comprises, among others, specialists, a judge and local councillors. The issue was whether this case should be handled by the committee rather than local authority officials. The Ombudsman wrote to the grandmothers, asking them to wait for a reply from the committee for children and young people and informing them that they could subsequently contact him again if necessary. The case resulted in the Ombudsman initiating a general case in relation to the local authority concerning the task allocation between its social services department and the committee for children and young people. Many cases are forwarded to other authorities because the Ombudsman cannot consider the cases. The City of Copenhagen needed to refer a woman and her son to cheaper ­accommodation. However, the woman only wanted to live in Vesterbro, where her entire network was located. The City did not wish to offer them accommodation there. When the Ombudsman took up the case after the woman had lodged a complaint, it turned out that the City’s own guidelines emphasised that special account could be taken of the networks of children. As the woman had specifically mentioned that the situation of the boy, who was described as fragile, had been stabilised in Vesterbro, the City decided to find accommodation for them in this location. Many Ombudsman cases are closed without an actual statement expressing either criticism or ‘exoneration’, for instance if the authority changes its decision while the Ombudsman is processing the case. ‘Trade secrets’, was the response of the then Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs to a freelance journalist who requested access to the terms applying to the work of several financial and legal consultants to the State in connection with the preparation of the second bank package. According to the Act on Public Access to Documents on Public Files, so-called trade secrets can be exempted from access, but the authority must specify what harm granting access may do. The Ministry had not done so. When the Ombudsman moreover found some of the information freely available on a legal firm’s website, he recommended that the Ministry reconsider the case.