56 CASE NO. 15/01922 CASE NO. 15/03239 An eight-year-old girl needed rehabilitation therapy after suffering from meningitis. The hospital prepared an intensive, specialised rehabilitation plan which was to be executed by staff with neuropsychological expertise. A citizen complained via the citizen complaint form at www.ombudsmanden.dk that she was unable to obtain a refund of her money from the Danish State Railways (DSB) for a multitrip ticket. As contact information, the citizen had merely stated her initial letter, a very common surname, an imprecise address and a mobile phone number. When one of the Ombudsman’s staff members called her, she stated her – also very common – given name, but no address or civil registration number. Instead, she requested that the Ombudsman wrote to her e-mail address. However, the municipality, which was supposed to pay for the rehabilitation, assessed that an offer of physiotherapy was sufficient and refused to cover the rehabilitation expenses. A lawyer complained to the Ombudsman on behalf of the girl’s parents. The provision within this field stipulated that the municipality was not allowed to disregard the physicians’ assessment in relation to the need for rehabilitation. Consequently, the Ombudsman forwarded the complaint to the municipality so that the municipality could explain to the girl’s parents how the offer of physiotherapy could be comparable to the specialised therapeutic option recommended by the hospital. The municipality looked into the case again and decided to withdraw its refusal. Sometimes, the Ombudsman can assist in a case merely by asking the authority the ‘right’ questions. CASE NO. 15/02690 ‘I’m just a child, and it’s not fair that I’m not getting my money’, a 17-year-old girl wrote to the Ombudsman. The girl was entitled to a children’s supplementary pension of approx. 16,000 DKK annually from her adoptive father. However, although the girl had informed the authorities that she no longer had any contact with her biological mother, the Agency of Governmental Administration paid the first rate into the mother’s Easy Account (in Danish NemKonto, a bank account for receiving payments from the public sector. All citizens in Denmark are required to have a NemKonto). The mother, who was mentally ill, spent the money straightaway. The girl appealed to the Agency for Modernisation, Ministry of Finance, and the Agency replied that the money had been paid into the Easy Account connected to the girl’s social security number. The girl should have pointed out on her own initiative that her social security number was to be connected to another account. The Easy Account rules said so. The Ombudsman did not find that the authorities had made errors in the case, but he directed the attention of the State Administration and the Danish Agency for Digitisation to the problem. In 2015, the Ombudsman received about 50 complaints from children and young people under 18 years of age. The Ombudsman wrote to the citizen that he was unable to process a complaint unless he could determine with certainty who had lodged it. Since he could not do so in this case, the case was closed. The Ombudsman Act stipulates that a complaint must include the name of the complainant. CASE NO. 15/02558 The Ministry of Justice wrote three times to a citizen who had requested access to public files pursuant to the Access to Public Administration Files Act that the Ministry expected to answer within three weeks. It appeared from the third letter that a processing error had occurred when the Ministry scanned the material for the citizen – consequently, the Ministry now had to do the work from scratch again. When three weeks had passed after this message, the citizen had still not received a reply from the Ministry. He complained to the Ombudsman who asked the Ministry for a statement about the prolonged processing time. But since it turned out that the Ministry had sent its decision to the citizen at the same time, the Ombudsman discontinued his investigation and wrote to the citizen that an investigation would not be of any help to him at the present time. The Ombudsman also wrote that in general, he paid special attention to the authorities’ processing times regarding requests for access to public files, and that he was currently processing another case about the Ministry’s case processing time. It is a prerequisite of the Danish Access to Public Administration Files Act that the authorities work quickly when journalists and other citizens request access to public files. Therefore, the Ombudsman has tightened the demands for his own processing time in complaints about access to public files.