ABSTRACT
The responses of the governmental system to situations presented by the community system are almost always effected by specialist groups which we will call ‘agencies’. Depending on the level of the governmental system with which we may be currently concerned, an ‘agency’ may be a local authority as a whole, a particular department within a local authority, a specialist section within a department, or even a particular individual who has certain defined powers to take action in particular classes of situation. In the course of our discussion, we will sometimes wish to consider ‘agencies’ which fall outside the local sector of the total governmental system: for example, departments of central government, area offices of regional gas or electricity authorities, or even branches of certain public corporations which are of only a quasi-governmental character. The term ‘agency’ thus allows for considerable flexibility of interpretation.
