Blank stationery just begging for another new logo. Photograph: David Sillitoe
There were no statues of John Prescott to pull down. Instead they marked regime change at the deputy prime minister's old empire by peeling off the logo to his former department.
The pompously named Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is no more. From now on it will be known as the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Rebranding is something that officials in this particular department have had to get used to, this being the fifth name change in nine years.
It always to used be called the Department of the Environment, but when Labour came to power it got merged with transport to form the Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions or DETR. Mr Prescott's first fiefdom quickly earned the unfortunate shorthand title of "Deter".
Then, in 2001, the department lost its environment team to a new merged ministry with agriculture. It then became the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, under Stephen Byers.
When Byers was forced to go, another new department was formed. Despite being stripped of transport, it was grandly and confusing named the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The title was so ugly and unwieldy that Guardian reporters were urged to avoid it in the paper's style guide.
But with its old boss removed, and new boss Ruth Kelly in place, the department now has the more descriptive but mundane title of Department for Communities and Local Government.
In nine years, the alphabet soup has morphed from DoE, to DETR, to DTLR, to ODPM, to DCLG.
Amidst all the fuss about Mr Prescott's continuing salary, has anyone toted up how much all this departmental tinkering has cost? Spending on new stationery alone must be huge.
In an interview with her local paper, Ms Kelly described the new ministry as the "department of place, communities and citizen empowerment".
The government insists that the department's role has been enlarged to include "civic renewal" responsibilities from the Home Office. But the Home Office still looks after antisocial behaviour, or the "respect agenda", despite calls to place this under the communities remit.
The new ministry is also set to lose much of its day-to-day responsibility for housing, regeneration and social exclusion under a new super quango currently being considered.
It is all being done in the name of cost cutting and efficiency, but it will involve yet more rebranding, upheaval and expensive restructuring.
