As part of today’;s reshuffle, the Government merged the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) with the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills to form the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS whose key role will be to build Britain’s capabilities to compete in the global economy.
The intention is to create a single department committed to building Britain’s future economic strengths and capability to compete in the global economy. The press release announcing the merger says that ‘to compete in a global economy and create the jobs of the future Britain requires a regulatory environment that encourages enterprise, skilled people, innovation, and world-class science and research.’ The official announcement also describes the new department as ‘the institutional realisation of the approach to promoting UK competitiveness and productivity as set out in the New Industries, New Jobs paper of April 2009