Their bosses have been able to give them little comfort, confessing chaos will reign while a range of workplace systems are put in place to tackle the enormousness of their new roles.

But exactly what those new roles will be remains a mystery, with 1000 staff to be located across six buildings left struggling with security clearances, communication and technology networks, and finance and human resource systems that are incompatible.

More than 700 staff from the Department of Climate Change and a section of the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts gathered for a hastily called meeting at the National Convention Centre yesterday morning.

On Tuesday, the new Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency will officially employ them, after Mr Rudd's decision to remove the home insulation responsibilities from Peter Garrett and his Environment portfolio.

Department secretary Martin Parkinson told the crowd it would be a unique, new institution and not just a different version of either of their previous departments.

''I'm Martin Parkinson, currently the secretary of the Department of Climate Change and as of Tuesday, unless the PM changes his mind between now and then, secretary of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency,'' he said.

Dr Parkinson said it was an irony that after restructuring workplace systems in his department just weeks ago, he was told last week that the department no longer existed.

Making fun of the new department's name, Dr Parkinson said the acronym DCCEE wouldn't easily roll off the tongue.

''I've heard people refer to it as C Squared E Squared; or C2E2,'' he said.

But he was serious when describing the insulation program debacle, saying staff from the Environment Department had been put through hell trying to administer it.

''In the last week I have seen up close and personal what you've had to go through over recent months and ... it's been hellish for you,'' he said.

''You have not had, for whatever reason, the resources that you needed to do the job and even if you had, there are inherent policy design flaws ...

For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.