New government shuns major Whitehall reorganisation

In a marked departure from the Labour years, David Cameron has frozen any major reforms to Whitehall departments, as well as scaling back the prime minister's policy unit and removing spin doctor posts, reports The Guardian . The Department for Children, Schools and Families was reborn as the Department for Education (DfE) with an austere logo to replace the rainbow image of the last government. But the policy briefs within each department remain largely unchanged. New ministers have been told they must work largely within the current departmental structures after criticisms that their Labour predecessors spent millions creating and restructuring departments. The Liberal Democrats calculated that Labour spent £2.6m on rebranding and reorganising 11 government departments between 1997 and 2007. Universities will stay in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and child protection within the education department. Among other minor changes responsibility for the Olympics has been added to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg's office will take on political and constitutional reform, which could take responsibilities from the Ministry of Justice. The policy unit, a Downing Street office of political researchers employed to help the prime minister formulate policies, is to be scaled back in a move interpreted by some as an attempt to avoid the prime minister stepping on the toes of Lib Dem ministers across government. Civil servants have spent months preparing for the possibility of a new government. The new education secretary Michael Gove requested that officials draw up an action plan to rebrand the department during pre-government meetings with civil servants. That plan kicked into action within hours of his appointment on Wednesday. The more traditional label for the department reflects a shift across Whitehall. Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, had prepared for a possible Conservative government by ordering civil servants to address new members of the cabinet as "secretary of state" when they take up their posts.