In most cases, the key is that each Minister s set of portfolios should be related in some important way. The structure should provide Ministers with an appropriate span of control. The structure should promote a strong client orientation, and be based on a rough delineation between policy formulation and implementation responsibilities. The structure should seek to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Ministries are not intended to last indefinitely, and at any one time the structure should reflect priority issues facing the country and facilitate achievement of the government s key medium-term priorities.
Ministries are in a legal or constitutional sense indistinguishable from the state.
They often have no specific legislative basis and their assets are the general property of the state. Their source of funding is almost entirely the state budget and they usually have nil or very minor revenue earnings. As they have no corporate or legal identity separate from the state, they have generally no legal competence to enter into corporate contractual relationships with suppliers. Generally, ministries provide policy advice, analysis and evaluation. Executing agencies also rarely have legal competence to enter into contractual relationships with suppliers.