The growth in the length of government agency names has amused me for several years.
These days it seems as though every function of an agency needs to be listed in its full name,so that the community remember what they are responsible for - and then be embodied in a meaningless acronym, perhaps to ensure that the community forget again.
We appear to no longer be creating agencies with short names such as 'Centrelink' or Medicare'. Names that are short, sharp, snappy, focused and easy to remember.
Instead government appears to like names such as:
These days it seems as though every function of an agency needs to be listed in its full name,so that the community remember what they are responsible for - and then be embodied in a meaningless acronym, perhaps to ensure that the community forget again.
We appear to no longer be creating agencies with short names such as 'Centrelink' or Medicare'. Names that are short, sharp, snappy, focused and easy to remember.
Instead government appears to like names such as:
- Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (a relatively short 63 characters)
- Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport (67 characters)
- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (69 characters)
- Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (69 characters)
- Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (72 characters),
- Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (76 characters)
- Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (76 characters)
- Comcare, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission, and the Seafarers' Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority (a whopping 133 characters!)
I have thought of one reason why the names have grown so long.
They are too hard to tweet with a criticism.
(Unfortunately they are also too hard to tweet with a compliment as well!)
Can anyone else suggest long agency names at Commonwealth or state/territory level in Australia, or maybe overseas?
What is the longest government agency name in the country? It might be worth a Guiness Book of Records bid!
I dunno, but you might find it on this website! http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/
ReplyDeleteSame in Europe - unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteTry newly formed Danish Agency for Digitisation (26 charachters)or in Danish "Digitaliseringsstyrelsen" (24 char.)- in short digst (www.digst.dk).
My own unit is titled "kontoret for digital kommunikation og borger.dk" (42 char.) loosely translate to "the office for digital communication and borger.dk" (the latter being our national citizen portal).