BEIS rebuts claim that it lacks purpose

The Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy has dismissed reports that more than half of its staff do not know what the department stands for.

A survey of BEIS staff conducted in the autumn of 2016 revealed that the majority of the department’s staff “have no clear idea what BEIS stands for”, according to a story in the Guardian yesterday.

Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis leapt on the news, slamming it as “indictment on the prime minister’s flagship reorganisation of government”.

A spokesperson for the department told Utility Week however, that: “This year’s people survey took place less than three months after the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was created by the new government from two existing departments, resulting in a significant transition for staff.”

They assured that BEIS “is at the forefront of much of the new government’s ambitious agenda.”

At the time that BEIS was created from a merging of the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, many environmentalists feared that it would result in a loss of focus on climate change issues. There was also broader concern that it would create uncertainty around energy policy.