AA handed in a complaint against the social services in Örebro municipality where she stated that she handed in several applications on financial support to the municipality, but the applications were not registered on the day which she handed them in, but on the following day. Örebro municipality explained, in their referral response to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen, how documents handed in to the municipality’s service centre are handled. Their routine is to empty the service centre’s mailbox every morning, and upon this, documents are considered having arrived when they reach the relevant committee.

In the decision the Parliamentary Ombudsman holds that a mail box that belongs to the municipality must be considered as every committee’s mailbox. It is thereby a mistake not to register AA’s applications pursuant to section 22, third paragraph, of the Administrative Procedure Act. Moreover, the Parliamentary Ombudsman directs criticism towards the municipality for their routine to wait to register documents that are handed in to the municipality’s mailbox