KINGSTON, Jamaica— Minister of Tourism and Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives, Edmund Bartlett, says an organisational review of the human resource (HR) capabilities required for an efficient Parliament is being commissioned.

“This [is] to enable us to justify [the] reclassification of current positions, creation of additional positions where necessary to attract and retain the hard-working, capable and qualified individuals that we have and to explore solutions, such as contracted consultancies to boost capacity in some areas,” Bartlett said.

He was speaking in the House of Representatives as he closed the 2021/22 Sectoral Debate on Tuesday.

Bartlett added that the Parliament, in partnership with the Cabinet Office and e-Gov Jamaica, is also working on the formulation and implementation of an information and communications technology (ICT) development plan for the Houses of Parliament, in order to improve efficiency in all the operations of the Parliament. 

Bartlett noted that the Parliament is in the process of acquiring speech-to-text technology for real-time reporting of the proceedings of both Houses and their Committees.

He added that the Parliament is also in the process of securing approval from the Public Procurement Commission to enable all of this. 

“The prime minister has also asked me to immediately and expeditiously undertake a comprehensive review of the system of sessional committees and make recommendations as to the resources needed to improve their effective functioning,” Bartlett said.

He said that this is in progress “and we will report accordingly in the next parliamentary session, which will begin in September, when we have the start of the State of Constituency Debate”.