The sliders are Empire wide. The only way you can manage a single production type on a single colony world would be by using the focus button. You can not focus on more than one production type per world.

If you do not know where that may be, it is located in two different areas. The first, select a world, and go to the planet screen. At the top are 3 very large boxes each representing the types of production. Military, Social, and Research. Click on one of the boxes and it highlights. You have just focused your world. It will concentrate most of its resources to that type of production.

The second place you can find it will be the colony management screen. At the top you will see a shield / hammer / flask. Following the columns down you will noticed numbers in each of your colony worlds. These are the values of production each colony has in each area. If you click on one of the boxes (with the numbers) next to the planet you want to focus, it will highlight also, focusing that planet on the production you desire.

Other than that, you can specialize with what you build, and what you focus, but nothing in regards to overall spending sliders as you mention above.

Hope this helps.

Oh... and to unfocus... just click on it again.   

Some people find the economics confusing, others don't, so don't feel bad if you are having a bit of trouble with it at first. Once you get used to it the system works pretty well.

Quixen is correct, your colonies can be independently managed. I won't tell you how to do it since I think he already posted a pretty good description on how to do it. Let us know if you need any more help with this!