Portfolio (government)

A ministry is a governmental organisation, headed by a minister, that is meant to manage a specific sector of public administration. Ministries have a bureaucratic structure.

Different states have different numbers and names of ministries, but the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary notes that all states have (often under different names) a Ministry of Interior, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Ministry of Defense (which may be divided into ministries for land forces and the navy), a Ministry of Justice and a Ministry of Finance. Ministries called the Ministry of Education or similar are also common.

Ministries are usually immediate subdivisions of the Cabinet (the executive branch of the government), and subordinate to its chief executive who is called Prime Minister, chief minister, President, minister-president or (federal) Chancellor.

During the 20th century, many countries increasingly tended to replace the term "ministry" with words such as "department", "office" or "state secretariat". In some countries, these terms may be used with specific meanings: for example, an office may be a subdivision of a department.

In Canada, five of the ten provincial governments use the term "ministry" to describe their departments (Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Alberta) but the other five, as well as the federal government, use the term "department". Despite the difference in nomenclature, both the provincial and federal governments use the term "minister" to describe the head of a ministry or department. The specific task assigned to a minister is referred to as his or her "portfolio".

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