121 NEWS PUBLISHED ON THE OMBUDSMAN’S WEBSITE IN 2017 All news can be read in full (in Danish only) on www.ombudsmanden.dk. 4 January 11 January Ombudsman to focus on social psy­ chiatric residential facilities in 2017 Improved conditions for mentally ill inmates of Vestre Fængsel In 2017, the Ombudsman’s Monitoring Department The participation of mentally ill inmates of the will have special focus on conditions at the coun­ local Copenhagen prison Vestre Fængsel in social try’s social psychiatric residential facilities. activities has increased over the last four years. This is the good news following visits to the prison 9 January hospital in 2012, 2013 and 2016 by monitoring More openness in relation to monitoring visits teams from the Ombudsman, assisted by medical The results of the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits Institute for Human Rights. experts from DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture and human rights experts from the Danish will in future be published on the Ombudsman’s website. This will be done to enable interested 12 January parties to keep updated on which institutions the Ombudsman to look into conditions for young people deprived of their liberty Ombudsman visits and the outcome of the visits. The information available will include the Ombuds­ man’s final recommendations to the institutions. In 2017, staff of the Ombudsman’s Children’s In addition, the Ombudsman will publish on his Division are going to visit a number of institutions website a new manual for monitoring activities which mainly house young people who are serving which describes in detail how monitoring visits are a sentence or have been remanded in custody. The carried out. reason for this is that the theme for this year’s monitoring visits by the Children’s Division is young 9 January people in secure residential facilities and in state The Ombudsman’s Taxation Division has now opened and local prisons. With its new Taxation Division, which opened at Public employee went too far with remarks on Facebook the turn of the year, the Ombudsman institution now has more resources to investigate cases con­ 13 January cerning tax matters. This is the result of a decision A municipal employee overstepped the limits to by Parliament in the spring of 2016. his freedom of expression when he described