This means that a Parliamentary motion for a vote of no confidence is not in order should the actions of an organ of government fail in the proper discharge of its responsibilities.
The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them.
Commonwealth ministers are obliged to report failings of departments under their control to the Parliament, and to actively seek solutions to problems in their jurisdiction.
Although public opinion remains strongly in favour of ministers resigning regardless of their personal involvement in departmental failings, the need for such actions has been eroded by the introduction of alternative mechanisms ensuring executive accountability, such as freedom of information laws and more powerful parliamentary committees.
In Canada ministerial responsibility has been reduced as it has become increasingly common for top level civil servants to be called before Parliament, bypassing the minister.
A famous case was Minister of Works Bob Semple, who refused to resign in 1944 over engineering failures in the construction of a railway tunnel.
The formulation of some guidelines took place during the Crichel Down Affair in 1954 in which the Minister of Agriculture, Thomas Dugdale, resigned, despite an inquiry suggesting that all mistakes were made within his department without his knowledge and in some cases due to deliberate deceit by civil servants.
Later details suggested that he resigned because he supported the civil servants' actions and because he disagreed with the government accepting the inquiry's conclusions.