| 27 Jørgen Steen Sørensen Parliamentary Ombudsman Two cases about municipalities’ handling of children and young people show how important it is to observe the formal requirements for case processing. Duty to take notes, record-keeping, requirements as to form, and documentation. These are not words that sound attractive in the current discussion regarding the right use of public sector resources. They evoke associations of so-called ‘cold hands’, time wasting, paper shuffling and academic bureaucrats. rules, which at first glance may appear to be bureaucratic and formalistic, are based on important considerations. And that it can be difficult to use the ‘warm hands’ in the right way, if the rules are not observed. But is that really always the right way of looking at it? The first example is the so-called Ry case which we concluded in October 2018. The Ombudsman institution is there to ensure that the public authorities observe the existing rules. But naturally we also reflect on the purposes of the rules and do our best to explain these purposes to the authorities. We probably all find it easier to remember to follow the rules if we do not only understand that they are there, but also why they are there. A 16-year-old boy at a school in the small town of Ry in Jutland had back in February 2017 been subjected to an assault with a fire bomb. He sus­tained serious burns, and four boys of the same age were subsequently convicted as the perpetrators in the case. I am not going to meddle in the discussion on whether or not there are generally too heavy demands for documentation etc. in the public sector. But I would like – from the real world – to give you a couple of examples that show that Inadequate documentation in case from the town of Ry Our Children’s Division carried out an extensive investigation of the way in which the school and Skanderborg Municipality (as the responsible municipality) had handled the boys involved up until the violent assault. The impression was that the assault was the culmination of a lengthy, complicated and conflict-ridden chain of events