| 19 Inge Birgitte Møberg Deputy Head of Division Lisbeth Adserballe Head of Division If a public authority itself becomes aware of an error, even before the Ombudsman has finished his investigation, both the Ombudsman and the authority can save resources. This will also provide quicker help to the citizen. Therefore, the Ombudsman always tries to ‘put the authority on the right track’. Over recent years, we have in the Ombudsman institution had an increasing focus on asking clearly defined and precise questions of the authorities when asking for statements on cases – in order to clarify the real problem in the case. Experience shows that if an authority is helped along via such questions and acknowledges an error, then the authority is often itself interested in correcting the error immediately and thereby resolving the case. This happened for instance in a case where a younger couple had built a noise-reducing fence facing a road (Case No. 17/03349). According to the authorities, the fence was much too high because an extra layer of earth had allegedly been placed there prior to the fence being built. The couple was therefore ordered to pull down the fence. Conversely, the couple explained that they had not placed any earth there but just levelled the existing ground prior to the fence being built. We therefore specifically asked the authorities how they knew that an extra layer of earth had been placed there. When we asked for statements on the matter, we pointed out that, as the fence was only 1.8 metres high, 90 centimetres of earth would have had to be placed along the whole stretch of the fence for the authorities’ figures to be correct. Our points caused the appeal board to revoke the order to pull down the fence, as it was not possible to establish how much extra earth had been added. The noise-reducing fence, that had cost 250,000 DKK, could therefore remain in place. Every 10th investigation stops after our first enquiry for a statement The example with the noise-reducing fence does not stand alone. An analysis shows that the Ombudsman, on average, annually closes down about 25 cases after our first enquiry for a statement because the authority decides to reopen the case. Maybe 25 cases do not sound