Dispersion and spatial decentralization in the British Columbia public service
Date
1978
Authors
Huot, William John
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Abstract
Although economic geographers have traditionally emphasized private sector industrial location, recent shifts in employment patterns have focussed attention on administrative and public sector employment. This thesis is a study of the administrative spatial patterns in the British Columbia Public Service, and the factors which produce such geographic distributions. In particular, the two phenomena studied are the dispersion of administrative employees and the spatial decentralization of decision-making authority. The approach used is that of policy analysis, with the spatial patterns which presently exist assumed to reflect the government's implicit dispersion and spatial decentralization policies.
These spatial patterns are quantitatively described through the development of indices for the two major variables. Spatial locations are aggregated into three categories: the two major urban centres of Victoria and Vancouver, five regional centres, and other communities. Authority is measured using Dr. T. T. Paterson's decision band job evaluation categories. The indices for a sample of thirty administrative branches are compared, and similarities and differences in distributive patterns are analyzed.
Administrative spatial patterns are products of continuing administrative and political processes of distribution and adaptation. The organizational objectives of effectiveness and efficiency in administrative operations can conflict with the government's social policy objectives with regard to economic development. The administrative factors which affect optimal distribution patterns are reviewed, and the role of government administrative employment in economic development is discussed briefly.
A review of the spatial policies of the governments of Great Britain, Sweden and Canada is used to assess policy alternatives. While it is not possible to evaluate the appropriateness of these alternatives or o f present policy without detailed communication, economic and city-system studies, and without a clearer understanding of the government's values and social policy objectives, some general observations are made. The present policy appears to be oriented toward optimization of operations at a sub-organizational (departmental) level, and results in apparent sub-optimization for the total Public Service organization. Such a policy also precludes the use of the distribution of government operations as an instrument of regional economic policy. Co-ordination of distribution patterns should result in increased operational efficiency for the total Public Service. There also appears to be a potential for using government administrative employment as a tool for economic policy, but perhaps this could only be done at the expense of some reduction in efficiency of operations.