If you’re referring to the US government then Departments are the larger entity, who’s head is a member of the President’s cabinet.
Agencies are the actual organizations contained within a department. There are also Independent Agencies.
For example Department of Interior is headed by the Secretary of Interior who is on the presidents cabinet. National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and wildlife service are all agencies within the department of Interior.
Environmental Protection Agency is an “independent agency” who’s head is also on the cabinet.
It depends on context, and there’s going to be a lot of overlap. In the U.S. federal government, a department usually refers to one of the 17 executive departments headed by cabinet level officials. They’re basically the largest division of government. Agencies can be subdivision of an executive departments, or they can be independent agencies, like the CIA or NASA which aren’t part of any executive department.
An agent is someone who acts on behalf of another person. You can hire an agent to act on your behalf in some capacity depending on the services they provide. When a group of agents offering same or similar services get together and form a business they form an agency.
An existing, sufficiently large business might decide that it needs a group of people to carry out specific tasks within the business. Since the staff will be carrying our similar tasks or working as part of a team the business decides to situate the workers together either physically or by association. The division of staff into specific groups is the basic concept of departments. But they can exist in many organisations not just businesses.
In the United States, government departments are large units within the Executive Branch (President, Governor), that are headed by a Cabinet members (called Secretaries) that are responsible for a specific area of government policy. For example, The Department of Defense is responsible for the military, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for protecting domestic infrastructure and national security.
In other countries, this would be called a Ministry, headed by a Minister.
Within these departments are agencies that are responsible for more specific tasks. For example, under DHS, you have FEMA, which is an agency focused on natural disasters, Secret Service, an agency responsible for protecting the President and other leaders, Customs and Border Protection, responsible for protecting the borders, a CISA, responsible for protecting critical infrastructure.
Under the Department of Defense, while they’re not normally called agencies, you have the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc, which would be akin to agencies.
There’s no one answer to this, it depends on the context. Those words may or may not mean something different depending on that. In the context of the U.S. Federal government, those are meaningful different things. In other contexts of which there are many, it may not matter, or they might have different meanings but not the same as within the U.S. Federal government.
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Its a label, nothing more. It is a group of people that all have a similar job and have been stuck together to do support each other.
A department is a unit within something, and an agency is a complete entity?
If you’re referring to the US government then Departments are the larger entity, who’s head is a member of the President’s cabinet.
Agencies are the actual organizations contained within a department. There are also Independent Agencies.
For example Department of Interior is headed by the Secretary of Interior who is on the presidents cabinet. National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and wildlife service are all agencies within the department of Interior.
Environmental Protection Agency is an “independent agency” who’s head is also on the cabinet.
Does that make sense?
It depends on context, and there’s going to be a lot of overlap. In the U.S. federal government, a department usually refers to one of the 17 executive departments headed by cabinet level officials. They’re basically the largest division of government. Agencies can be subdivision of an executive departments, or they can be independent agencies, like the CIA or NASA which aren’t part of any executive department.
An agent is someone who acts on behalf of another person. You can hire an agent to act on your behalf in some capacity depending on the services they provide. When a group of agents offering same or similar services get together and form a business they form an agency.
An existing, sufficiently large business might decide that it needs a group of people to carry out specific tasks within the business. Since the staff will be carrying our similar tasks or working as part of a team the business decides to situate the workers together either physically or by association. The division of staff into specific groups is the basic concept of departments. But they can exist in many organisations not just businesses.
In the United States, government departments are large units within the Executive Branch (President, Governor), that are headed by a Cabinet members (called Secretaries) that are responsible for a specific area of government policy. For example, The Department of Defense is responsible for the military, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for protecting domestic infrastructure and national security.
In other countries, this would be called a Ministry, headed by a Minister.
Within these departments are agencies that are responsible for more specific tasks. For example, under DHS, you have FEMA, which is an agency focused on natural disasters, Secret Service, an agency responsible for protecting the President and other leaders, Customs and Border Protection, responsible for protecting the borders, a CISA, responsible for protecting critical infrastructure.
Under the Department of Defense, while they’re not normally called agencies, you have the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc, which would be akin to agencies.
There’s no one answer to this, it depends on the context. Those words may or may not mean something different depending on that. In the context of the U.S. Federal government, those are meaningful different things. In other contexts of which there are many, it may not matter, or they might have different meanings but not the same as within the U.S. Federal government.
Both are part of the same toolbox (the government), just doing different sized jobs. No need for bloated websites to tell you that