138 annual report 2013 After investigating the woman’s situation further, the municipality made a decision that she had to repay ordinary and extra child benefit as well as housing benefit for a period of time, and subsequently, the municipality also decided that she had to repay overpaid pension for the same period. The Social Tribunal upheld these decisions. The grounds given by the authorities for their decisions were that they assessed that the woman had not been effectively single during the period in question and that she had received too high amounts of benefits in bad faith. The Ombudsman agreed that the concept of ‘single’ was to be understood in the same manner in the Child Benefit Act and the Act on Social Pensions. However, he found it unfortunate that the decisions left the impression that the authorities had to make the same assessment in order to determine whether the conditions for ordering repayment under the Child Benefit Act and the Housing Benefit Act, respectively, were met. After investigating the case, the Ombudsman stated that he considered it a mistake that the municipality had not been alert to complying with the provisions of section 10(3) of the Act on Legal Protection in Connection with the Administration’s Use of Compulsory Intervention and Duties of Disclosure. He also assessed that the woman had not received sufficient guidance in connection with the case. In addition, the Ombudsman made a number of comments concerning a few of the specific considerations to which the authorities had given importance, including their use of the anonymous tip-off. The Ombudsman further found that the course of events of the case gave rise to reasonable doubt whether the woman had received the benefits ‘in bad faith’. Finally, he was of the opinion that the municipality did not have a sufficient legal basis for demanding that the woman pay the bank fee. 2013-5. Transition to early retirement benefit – cessation of personal work involvement more than temporary A man applied for early retirement benefit as of 16 January 2009, which was two years after his 60th birthday, when he had received his early retirement certificate. The man had practised as a self-employed dentist for a number of years. The Employment Committee of the National Social Appeals Board ruled that the man could not go on early retirement benefit until 28 April 2009 at the earliest because that was the date on which the man’s personal work involve-

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