Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Welsh: Yr Adran Fusnes, Arloesi a Sgiliau

Department overview
Formed	5 June 2009
Jurisdiction	United Kingdom
Headquarters	1, Victoria Street, London
Annual budget	£16.5 billion (current) & £1.3 billion (capital) for 2011-12
Minister responsible	Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
Department executive	Martin Donnelly, Permanent Secretary
Child agencies	Companies House HM Land Registry Insolvency Service Intellectual Property Office Met Office National Measurement and Regulation Office Skills Funding Agency UK Space Agency
Website	www.gov.uk/bis

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) is a ministerial department of the United Kingdom Government created on 5 June 2009 by the merger of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

Ministers

The BIS Ministers are as follows:

Minister	Rank	Portfolio
The Rt Hon. Sajid Javid MP	Secretary of State President of the Board of Trade	Overall responsibility
The Rt Hon. Anna Soubry MP	Minister of State	Business and Enterprise
Jo Johnson MP	Minister of State	Universities and Science
Ed Vaizey MP	Minister of State	Culture and the digital economy
Baroness Anelay (interim) Mark Price (from April 2016)	Minister of State	Trade and investment
Nick Boles MP	Minister of State	Skills and Equalities
George Freeman MP	Parliamentary Under Secretary of State	Life sciences
Baroness Neville-Rolfe	Parliamentary Under Secretary of State	Intellectual property

The Permanent Secretary is Martin Donnelly, following the departure of Simon Fraser CMG, on 26 August 2010.

Responsibilities

The department is responsible for UK Government policy in the following areas:

• business regulation and support
• company law
• competition
• consumer affairs
• corporate governance
• employment relations
• export licensing
• further education
• higher education
• innovation
• insolvency
• intellectual property
• outer space
• postal affairs
• regional and local economic development
• science and research
• skills
• trade
• training

Some policies apply to England alone due to devolution, while others are not devolved and therefore apply to other nations of the United Kingdom.

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  2011 British Hajj Consular Delegation launch

Devolution

Economic policy is mostly devolved but several important policy areas are reserved to Westminster. Further and higher education policy is mostly devolved. Reserved and excepted matters are outlined below.

Scotland

Reserved matters:

• Competition
• Customer protection
• Import and export control
• Insolvency
• Intellectual property
• Outer space
• Postal services
• Product standards, safety and liability
• Research councils
• Telecommunications
• Time
• Business associations
• Weights and measures

The Scottish Government Economy and Education Directorates handle devolved economic and further and higher education policy respectively.

Northern Ireland

Reserved matters:

• Consumer safety in relation to goods
• Import and export controls, external trade
• Intellectual property
• Postal services
• Telecommunications
• Units of measurement

Excepted matter:

• outer space

The department's main counterparts are:

• Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (general economic policy)
• Department for Employment and Learning (employment relations, further and higher education policy)

Wales

Under the Welsh devolution settlement, specific policy areas are transferred to the Welsh Government rather than reserved to Westminster.

External links

• Official website
• bis.gov.uk/ Archived Website

Precursor departments:

• Department for Business and Regulatory Reform (BERR) Archived Website
• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) Archived Website