THE REGIONAL OFFICES OF THE DOE — POLICEMEN OR MEDIATORS? A STUDY OF LOCAL HOUSING POLICY
| Date | 01 December 1984 |
| Published date | 01 December 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1984.tb00572.x |
THE
REGIONAL
OFFICES
OF
THE
DOE
-
POLICEMEN
OR
MEDIATORS? A STUDY
OF
LOCAL
HOUSING
POLICY
BARRIE
HOULIHAN
The article
beg~ns
with a review of the
existing
literature on the regional level of government
and the 'regional state', and proceeds to focus on the range of linkages which are found
between the centre and local authorities. Seven linkages are identified and after an analysis
of
the regional level
of
government it is suggested that professional and technical linkages
predominate. The roles of the regional offices of the
DOE
are then examined within this
framework with particular attention being paid to the professional involvement in the
housing investment programme negotiations. The article concludes with suggestions
concerning the role and influence
of
the regional officers
of
the
DOE
on local authority
housing policy.
Recent years have seen a steady increase in the interest shown in the study of central-
local government relations.
Of
particular significance has been the
willingness
to
explore previously ignored aspects of this relationship, such as the role of profes-
sionals, and also to explore new developments such as the increasing use of policy
planning systems. However, one aspect of the relationship which seems to have
received less than its fair share of attention is the role of the regional offices of
central departments. This article examines the work
of
the regional offices of the
Department of the Environment
(DOE)
in relation to local authority housing policy
in general and the housing investment programme cycle in particular.
Research into the relationship between central and local government in the last
few years has challenged implicit assumptions concerning the homogeneous nature
of both central and local government and redirected the focus of research away
from a bipolar relationship to an appreciation of the complex network of
linkages
and organizations which constitute the relationship.
Of
particular importance in
stimulating this redirection
of
focus has been the fairly widespread adoption of an
Barrie Houlihan is a Lecturer
in
the
Department
of
International Relations at the North Staffordshire
Polytechnic.
This
article
is
based on a
series
of
interviews carried out in 1983 in
the
North West and
West Midlands regions.
The
author wishes
to
thank the editors and Mike Goldsmith
for
their helpful
comments on an earlier draft.
Public Administration
Vol.
62
Winter 1984
(401-421)
0
1984 Royal
Institute
of
Public Administration ISSN 0033-3298 $3.00
402
BARRIE
HOULIHAN
inter-organizational framework for the analysis of the central-local relationship
(Rhodes 1981; 1983). This framework conceptualizes the relationship as one
involving a large number of organizations (central government departments, local
authority departments, ad hoc agencies, professional and elected member associa-
tions) in a complex relationship
of
resource exchange and dependency. Accordingly
this framework raises a series of research questions regarding the extent and basis
of organizational autonomy (Houlihan 1983a), the nature of inter-organizational
linkages (Skelcher 1983), the resources exchanged (Rhodes 1983), the negotiation
and articulation of organizational goals (Barrett and Fudge 1981) and the relation-
ship between the public goals of organizations and the private interests of
organization members (Leach 1982).
In relation to the regional offices of central departments, the adoption of an
inter-organizational framework suggests that while acknowledging the subordinate
hierarchical status of the regional level, it cannot be simply assumed that regional
offices and their parent departments can be treated as a smgle entity, rather the
relationship needs to
be
the subject of empirical research.
The ‘middleman role’ of the regional office has been identified by those with
an interest in exploring the idea
of
a regional level of government and also by
those who have attempted to theorize about the ’regional state’. Keating and Rhodes,
for example, distinguish between those regional bodies, mainly regional offices of
central departments, which ’are best seen as extensions of central government into
the regions’ and those bodies which ’are distinguishable from both central and local
government in terms of function and constituency and possess varying degrees
of autonomy’ (Hogwood and Keating 1981; Elcock
1978).
This
latter group, referred
to
as ’intermediate
bodies’,
mainly comprises quasi-autonomous organizations such
as regional health and water authorities, but the authors do
note
that the
DOE
has
‘developed an intermediate role, mediating among local authorities, particularly
in planning matters, and promoting regional strategies’ (Hogwood and Keating
1981). This view of the
DOE‘S
regional offices is shared by Young, who concludes
that ’There
is
considerable discretion available to senior civil servants in regional
offices as over the
TPP
and
HIP
allocation where Ministers largely follow regional
civil servants’ recommendations‘ (Young
1981).
In
a later study, Hambleton similarly draws attention to the ’crucial interpretative
function’ of regional offices in relation to inner city and housing policy (Hambleton
1983). In particular he notes the potential for conflict between the centre and the
locality over the interpretation of policy that
arises
out of different value systems
and different perceptions of problems, and identifies the role
of
regional offices
as mediators in these conflicts
(see
also Leach et al. 1983).
Attention has also been drawn
to
the operation of regional offices by those who
relate the growth of this level of government to explanations of decentralization
or attempts to theorize about the ’regional state’. However, with this explanation
the focus is rarely on the regional offices
of
central departments but more commonly
on the range
of
quasi-autonomous bodies found at this level. Sanders,
in
develop-
ing his theory of the regional state, raises a number of questions which can be
related to the regional offices. He suggests that the regional level
of
the state is
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