Citizens' Adviser

The Citizens' Adviser helps to ensure the citizens' legal security and that the citizens' inquiries are heard and used to improve the municipality's case processing and personal service.

The Citizens' Adviser is employed by the City Council and is therefore an independent advisory and appeal body that all citizens, users and companies in Sønderborg Municipality can contact.

It's free to use the Citizens' Adviser and you can be anonymous. 

What can the Citizens' Adviser help me with?

The Citizens' Adviser can help to:

• understand decisions, e-mails and letters from the municipality
• find their way in the municipal organization
• offer mediation if it can help resolve conflicts between citizen and administration
• provide advice in connection with complaints about the municipality and help with the formulation of complaints
• process complaints about the municipality's case processing, including case processing time, staff behavior, employees' service of the citizens, etc.

Please note that the Citizens' Adviser can only talk to you about your case. If your complaint is about another person's private affairs, the Citizens' Adviser will usually require a power of attorney to process the case. The Citizens' Adviser's proxy form can be used, for example.

What can the Citizens' Adviser not do?

The Citizens' Adviser cannot:

• make or change decisions
• basically process cases that are over a year old

The Citizens' Adviser can also not process complaints about:

• the professional content of municipal decisions
• conditions that fall outside the municipality's business
• matters which are dealt with by other appeal bodies, eg the National Board of Appeal
• matters that are or will be brought before the municipal supervision, the Parliamentary Ombudsman or courts
• political decisions (eg service level) or over matters that have been assessed by the standing committees, the finance committee or the city council
• staff and employment conditions in the municipality