Performance record 1.6.3 Ombudsman Peter Fichtenbauer Looking back on the year 2016, I can see very satisfactory, positive results in some areas. The last report to the National Council and the Federal Council on the year 2015 provided more detail on the lamentable condition of the Austrian national defence than in previous years. For many years, politics has seen this part of public administration as almost obsolete, which resulted in substantial budget cuts and an image loss. In 2015, it was thus important to me that the AOB give the Austrian armed forces more attention. Many problems in this area were attributable to negligence on the part of politics. The equipment was out of date, the airspace surveillance did not comply with the constitutional mandate, and discussions about the abolition of state swearing-in ceremonies and downsizing of the military music section were detrimental to the reputation of the Austrian armed forces. The positive results mentioned above should be addressed here. In 2016 it became clear – not least with a view to the security situation – in particular to political decision-makers who considered the Austrian armed forces as almost dispensable that functioning armed forces are no luxury but rather a mandate from the Federal Constitution. It will remain the duty of the AOB to continue investigating possible cases of maladministration, but structural improvements to the extent undertaken in 2016 are a necessary basis for reducing or avoiding the same. Armed forces upgraded in 2016 Another matter important to the AOB, which despite initial positive signals from all political parties has not been implemented yet, is the equal status with the Austrian Court of Auditors for the monitoring and control of divested legal entities. Even if the trend of transferring many areas of public administration to the alleged private sector appears to be losing momentum, there are still many previously state-run areas that are now allocated to the private sector. Examples include the ASFINAG (a corporation responsible for planning, building, financing and maintaining Austrian motorways) and the Austrian Federal Forestry Office (Österreichische Bundesforste AG). They all manage public assets and are thus not private companies in the conventional sense. Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the AOB in the Parliament on 30 January 2017, I reiterated my birthday wish to place the AOB on an equal status with the Austrian Court of Auditors when it comes to the monitoring and control of state-administrated companies that are operated under a private sector legal form. It must be in the interest of politics to make citizens’ access to the monitoring and control of maladministration easier and not to burden them with the expensive and lengthy alternative through the courts. Divested legal entities The improvement in the situation of chronically ill children in the school setting is still particularly important to me. The phenomenon that a number 33