In an appearance before the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) late last year, Turnbull said it was ludicrous for a working population of almost 20,000 persons to be assisted by only 20 persons in the Department of Labour & Workforce Development.

Turnbull was told that this staff component included members of the Virgin Gorda office as well.

Acting Labour Commissioner, Michelle McLean, indicated that the department required another seven staff members.

Turnbull’s comments came after Minister for Labour & Immigration, Vincent Wheatley said part of the strategy for the Labour Department was to focus on the workforce development as opposed to work permit processing.

But according to Turnbull, it was impossible to achieve the initiatives that the subject minister wanted with the current size of the department’s staff.

The Opposition legislator further stated that attention had to be paid to the matter.

Proposed online portal

Meanwhile, Minister Wheatley told the SFC that a proposed online portal was expected to help free up manpower to allow the department to make a meaningful shift, but due to difficulties encountered, they were not able to get the portal operational.

According to the Minister, Cabinet papers to move the project forward were at the time with the Cabinet Secretary who is to bring it the executive body before it is introduced to the House of Assembly.

He said once persons had the ability to pay online, it should free up some capacity where the department could redeploy their focus on the workforce development side as opposed to work permit processing.

One of the other issues that was brought to the fore included efforts by the department at tracking the skills gaps that was present in the BVI.