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Institutions for the optimal planning policy process : application to British Columbia

University of British Columbia

(a) The Problem: As a student of planning, one is constantly seeking to define and solve the problem of planning: What is the planning process?; What should it be?; Is it what it should be?; If not, how does one make it better? Such questions are what prompted the line of inquiry of this paper- The problem thus has four dimensions; (1) defining the planning process; (2) defining the optimal planning process: (3) testing an existing planning process to see if it is the optimal process; (4) suggesting means of making the process optimal should it not be so. However, a process cannot exist without substantive inputs and outputs. Moreover, the attempt to improve a social process such as the planning process on a continual basis involves the design of institutional structures. Institutions cannot exist apart from the context of the society for which they are designed. Thus the problem has both theoretical and empirical aspects. The empirical setting for this paper is the Canadian province of British Columbia: the substantive inputs and outputs which highlight the planning process are taken from an actual case study - the Burns Lake Native Development Corporation. Although these empirical boundaries limit the scope of the study to British Columbian institutions, some general aspects of institutional design emerge which have wider geographical significance in Canada. (b) Method of Investigation: In defining the planning process (Chapter II) an attempt is made to distinguish between individual, organizational and public planning processes. It is the public planning process with which this paper is concerned. When the public planning process is viewed at the collective, societal level, rather than from the single perspective of an individual "planner," it is seen as a congruent process to the democratic policy process. The set of norms which the optimal planning/policy process will meet is, therefore, the set of democratic norms of the pluralistic, Canadian society (Chapter III). When the public policy process is examined in light of its ability to satisfy the democratic norms, a series of thirteen assessment criteria emerge (Chapter IV). An actual policy process would be judged optimal if it reasonably met the assessment criteria, given the constraints which exist to achieving optimality (Chapter V). In Chapter VI, the case of the Burns Lake Native Development Corporation is examined according to its ability to meet the assessment criteria and overcome the constraints to optimality. The Burns Lake process is chosen because it is judged to be a "good" process and therefore the given institutional framework is seen to be realizing its best performance. Certain key constraints are found to render the Burns Lake process less than optimal. la Chapter VII a normative model of regional government is designed to meet the assessment criteria while minimizing the constraints to optimality. The normative framework is essentially a multi-purpose, decentralized regional government in which all executive decisions are made jointly by an Executive Council, and all legislative decisions are made jointly by the General Assembly of elected representatives. When the Burns Lake process is transposed to this new institutional context, those key constraints which inhibited optimality are shown to be eliminated or minimized. (c) General Conclusions: Not only would the Burns Lake process have been improved had it been conducted within the institutional context of the regional government model, but so would the policy process in general. However, although the regional model would tend to improve provincial and municipal government performance, optimality of all policy processes would require institutional reform at all levels of government, federal government institutions included. Nevertheless, the twelve aspects of institutional design which are summarized in Chapter VIII highlight the key factors of institutional design necessary to promote optimality in the policy process. These are: Decentralized; Regional; Multipurpose; Elected Local Representatives; Executive Council Linked to Cabinet; All Decisions Joint; Overlapping Jurisdictions; Communications Web; Resources for Participation; Policy Analysis Secretariat; Committee Structure (non-hierarchical bureaucracy); Continuous Monitoring. Of these twelve aspects, only Aspect 2, "Regional" does not fit all provincial contexts, since the necessity of an intermediary government is dependent on physical and demographic size. Although each of the aspects in isolation (except perhaps Aspect 2) may secure benefits if applied to institutional design, only when all the aspects are applied as a system will full benefits be realized. If the normative model of regional government for B.C. were adopted, not only would benefits be realized in terms of an improved process, but also benefits would be realized in terms of better policy output. Process and product are not discrete aspects of policy development. A distinguishing feature of democratic policy formation is the emphasis placed on "means" or process in order to determine the correct "ends" (product).

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2010-03-06

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21624

Planning

University of British Columbia

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