The Council of Ministers' origins date to the production of the Albertine Statute by the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1848. The Statute, which subsequently became the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, did not envision collegial meetings of individual ministers, but simply the existence of ministers as heads of their ministries, responsible for their operations. The Council of Ministers subsequently developed as a constitutional convention and the office of the President of the Council emerged from the need to co-ordinate the activities of the individual ministers.