1 The jurisdictions which have or are considering ombudsmen are too numerous to list; and keeping informed of ombudsman developments around the world is now almost a full-time task. Bernard Frank—as Chairman of the Ombudsman Committee of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law—publishes annually (in July) a report recording the basic events relating to ombudsmen and others throughout the world and specifically in the United States. For a general treatment of the ombudsman see Gellhorn, Walter, Ombudsmen and Others: Citizens’ Protectors in Nine Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowat, D. C., The Ombudsman: Citizen's Defender (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Rowat, D. C., The Ombudsman Plan: Essays on the Worldwide Spread of an Idea (Toronto: Carleton Library, McClelland and Stewart, 1973)Google Scholar; Anderson, S. V. (ed.). Ombudsmen for American Government? (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968):Google ScholarHill, L. B., The Model Ombudsman: Institutionalizing New Zealand's Democratic Experiment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Hill, Model Ombudsman, 12. Other definitions may be found in Anderson, S. V., Ombudsman Papers: American Experience and Proposals (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of Governmental Studies, 1969), 3–4Google Scholar; D. C. Rowat, The Ombudsman, xxiv; and Gwyn, W. B., “Transferring the Ombudsman,” in Anderson, S. V., Ombudsmen for American Government? (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1968), 37–69, esp. 38–40.Google Scholar

3 In chaps. 2–7 of L. B. Hill, Ombudsmen, Bureaucracy and Democracy (London: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

4 Stacey, Frank, The British Ombudsman (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). 308.Google Scholar For a more reliable interpretation of the PCA see Gwyn, W. B., “The British PCA: ‘Ombudsman or Ombudsmouse’?” Journal of Politics 35 (1973), 45–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Sampling plan and survey administration are summarized in Appendix A.

6 Friedmann, K. A., “Complaining: Comparative Aspects of Complaint Behavior and Attitudes Toward Complaining in Canada and Britain,” Sage Professional Papers in Administrative and Policy Studies, Vol. 2 (No. 03–019) (1974).Google Scholar

7 Jacob, Herbert. Debtors in Court: The Consumption of Government Services (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969). 7.Google Scholar

8 Nordlinger reports that 67 per cent of the respondents in a Boston survey have heard of the “little city halls.” He finds the figure “large in absolute terms, and even more significant in relative terms.” In Wyner, A. J. (ed.), Executive Ombudsmen in the United States (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of Governmental Studies, 1973), 91.Google Scholar

9 For example: “Represents justice-investigates cases where people are unhappy”; “Keeps the government in touch with the people.”

10 Some of the catchwords used were: arbitrator, mediator, negotiator, intermediary, referee, peacemaker, goodwill ambassador, buffer, conciliator, umpire, impartial judge, trouble-shooter.

11 Some words used were: liaison counsellor, go-between, the in-between guy, middleman, stepping-stone, bridge.

12 For example: “You go to him when you need help”; “Helps people”: “Settles disputes”; “He advises people where to go”; “He looks into things”; “He sorts out muddles.”

13 For example: “Handles cases where person was wronged in the courts”; “He deals with complaints you cannot take to MP”; “He sorts out complaints about Parliament.”

14 “Eyewash: to keep people quiet”; “Getting money on false pretenses”; “It's a waste of time”; “Does not care about the average householder”; “Complaints, but not from the man-in-the-street.”

15 The N for each sample decreased as the questions on the ombudsman became more probing and respondents who had obvious misconceptions about the ombudsman were not questioned further by interviewers.

16 A serious clash between the provincial government and the ombudsman occurred after the 1969 survey was taken. It is the author's opinion that the increased support can be traced mainly to these events. These events are mentioned below (Philipzyk case).

17 Some questions had to be deleted from the 1971 Alberta interview schedule to make room for new questions which were found necessary on the basis of earlier results.

18 Herbert Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley observed sizeable attitude changes after official action had changed the real political situation, suggesting that official action creates experience or behaviour which has attitude changing effects, or possibly that opinions accommodate themselves to existing facts. Either case would suggest that support for newly established ombudsmen at other levels of government would increase dramatically from the apparent demand behaviour we observed. “Attitudes toward Desegregation,” in Kessel, J. H.et al., Micropolitics (New York: Holt. Rinehart and Winston, 1970), 405–18, at 413.Google Scholar

19 Alberta, 1971: “Now we would like to know as much as possible on what you know about Alberta's Ombudsman—what you've heard about him and so on—anything that comes to your mind.” Britain: “Would you tell me what you know about Britain's Ombudsman or Parliamentary Commissioner?” Interviewers were instructed to probe: “Anything else?”

20 The 1969 Alberta response on this question was not coded in the same detail.

21 Examples, with total N for each quote in brackets (first response) are: “Watered-down version of Scandinavian Ombudsman” (4); “His powers are limited”; “It is too restrictive”; “Bound hand and foot” (35 cases for the last three responses together); “It's not working—not effective” (9); “Gets too high a salary” (6); “Employs too many civil servants” (1); “Inclined to be biased” (2); “Like the ‘Mills of God’ he grinds slowly” (1).

22 The Philipzyk case is too complicated to be summarized adequately in a note. The following skeleton of events will give an indication of the controversy: the ombudsman recommended that the provincial government pay compensation to a man who had lost real estate employment as a result of powers given to a real estate cooperative under provincial legislation. The ombudsman found fault with civil servants who should not have allowed incorporation as a cooperative or who should not have approved this cooperative's by-laws because they were in conflict with delegated legislation and the Cooperative Act. The government refused to accept the ombudsman's recommendation and proceeded to establish a formal public inquiry into the ombudsman's recommendation, under the chairmanship of a former provincial chief justice. The ombudsman refused to testify before the inquiry claiming that the Ombudsman Act prohibited that. The irate former judge (by now also a director of a real estate company) found fault with the ombudsman's recommendations. When the public inquiry was announced (February 1970) and one year later when its report was published, the Legislature had several heated debates but the government persisted in its former decision.

23 The third response is not recorded in Table 6.

24 Only one response per interviewee (on the police subject) was recorded. The 179 discrete responses (offered either as a first, second or third response) therefore also represent 179 respondents. Of those only five phrased their response to imply disapproval: e.g., “Don't approve of an ex-cop as ombudsman”; “Swaggering cop shouldn't have the job.”

25 Friedmann, K. A., “The Alberta Ombudsman,” University of Toronto Law Journal 20(1970), 48–55, esp. 54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 The questions were formulated differently in the two surveys but are assessing the same phenomenon. In 1969 respondents were asked: “In your opinion, is Alberta's Ombudsman, Mr. McClellan, effective—that is, does he successfully help complainants?” In 1971, the question was: “Well then, what do you think of our Ombudsman? Do you think he is doing all he can to help people with a complaint?”

27 Alberta respondents (1971) who had directly or indirectly referred to the Philipzyk case were asked specifically for their interpretation of the dispute. The responses could not be included here.

28 See Kendall, M. G., Rank Correlation Methods (London: Hafner, 1962).Google Scholar For a short discussion of Kendall's tau c see Siegel, Sidney, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956), 213–23Google Scholar, or Hays, W. L., Statistics for Psychologists (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963). 647–55Google Scholar; or Leege, D. C. and Francis, W. L., Political Research (New York: Basic, 1974), 299–303.Google Scholar

29 Friedmann, “Complaining.”

30 H. Jacob, Debtors in Court, chap. 1 provides some support for that assumption.

31 Hill, Model Ombudsman, chap. 5, esp. 119–24.

32 Abbreviated from Friedmann, “Complaining,” 64–67.