Morning Briefing – Monday, September 16

The Copenhagen Post’s daily round-up of the front pages and other major Danish news stories

Sep 16, 2013

Size a factor in maternity ward complaints
Smaller is not better when it comes to maternity wards, according to study results that for the first time link mother and child safety with maternity ward size. The study, carried out by Copenhagen hospital Rigshopitalet and the patient insurance organisation Patientforsikringen, which rules in complaints of health service malpractice, found that half of complaints lodged against wards with under 1,000 births a year were upheld. Larger wards, with up to 3,000 births a year, had one of three complaints against them upheld. – Politiken

“No new tax assessments”
Many of the property value assessments delivered by tax authority Skat starting on October 1 will be wrong. Tax experts said they were told by Skat at a closed-door meeting last week that the organisation was still incapable of producing correct assessments. As many as 70 percent of homes have been improperly assessed in recent years. Now that Skat has admitted values still cannot be assessed correctly, members of parliament say it should put off sending out new assessments until the problems are fixed. – Berlingske

“Wrong” tax interpretation costs jobs
An all-too-restrictive interpretation of EU tax-subsidy regulations is costing thousands of jobs, say companies that build and service offshore drilling rigs and wind turbines. Because the Tax Ministry’s interpretation of the rules means that Danish servicing ships do not qualify for a lower tonnage tax offered cargo vessels, shippers register the ships abroad, taking the jobs with them. Other EU countries permit service ships to be taxed the same way as cargo vessels. – Børsen

Elderly, care for yourselves
Local councillors are not being open about the likelihood that most of today’s adults will need to have someone other than local authorities provide their eldercare. Calculations by Kjeld Møller Pedersen, a health economist with the University of Southern Denmark, show that the number of adults needing eldercare in the coming decade will outstrip councils’ ability to pay for it. Pedersen calculates that in ten years, the number of 80-year-olds will grow by 30 percent. An average 80-year-old uses 104,000 kroner more each year than she pays in taxes. The average 50-year-old costs about 30,000 kroner. – Jyllands-Posten

Metro “should have planned better”
When environmental appeals board Miljø- og Naturklagenævnet hands down its decision later this week about whether Metro may work at night, it will result in either more bother for residents or it will end up delaying completion of the 17-station City Ring line and add up to a billion kroner to its price. Either way, the Metro’s management will be to blame, says Bent Flyvbjerg, an Oxford University geographer specialising in major infrastructure projects. “They should have known from the start that they would need to work around the clock and then planned construction so it was possible.” – DR Nyheder

Here comes the recovery
Small and medium-sized businesses expect that economic recovery is right around the corner. Quarterly confidence figures issued by Håndværksrådet, which represents 20,000 such firms, shows confidence in the third-quarter was at its highest in six years. The improving confidence builds on an increased number of orders and comes after a number of polls in recent months showed similarly improving optimism. – Erhverv og Økonomi

Denmark’s worst job
A survey of 16,000 people has found that postal workers are least satisfied with their jobs. Post Danmark employees named a lack of recognition, meaningless work, a hectic workday and high stress levels as the reasons for their discontent. Union leaders also pointed to constant fear of layoffs in connection with precipitous drops in mail volume. The unions praised Post Danmark for making efforts to improve workplaces, but said initiatives such as automatisation and electric bicycles have only added to postal workers’ dissatisfaction. They said better management would help improve their attitude. – Ugebrevet A4

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