Almost 30 jobs held by guest workers at churches across Bermuda did not have to be advertised, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The Department of Immigration had granted waivers or automatic exemptions for 27 positions at eight places of worship, including for ministers, priests, canons and missionaries, as of November 17 last year.

The statistics were shared with this newspaper by the department in response to a public access to information request.

The disclosure reveals that only eight church jobs held by work permit-holders, out of a total of 37, were advertised before the permits were issued to non-Bermudians.

And in relation to the 27 jobs that were not advertised, work permits were issued in either 2015 or 2016, after the department’s most recent work-permit policy came into effect.

Advertisements were not required in relation to two positions, where the post-holders were given letters of permission to stay for 30 days.

The question of whether churches are exempt from having to advertise clerical positions has been under public scrutiny since an application for a work-permit renewal for the Reverend Nicholas Tweed, pastor of St Paul AME Church, was refused last year and that refusal was upheld on appeal.

Mr Tweed has been a vocal critic of the Bermuda Government and a leading light in the People’s Campaign pressure group, which managed to shut down Parliament twice last year with protests over immigration and the airport redevelopment deal.

The decision to reject the appeal over his work-permit renewal prompted further protests this month, with supporters claiming that home affairs minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin was politically motivated against him.

St Paul AME Church had previously said the decision not to renew Mr Tweed’s work permit amounted to a “rejection of the longstanding custom and practice surrounding appointments of pastors in the AME Church in Bermuda”.

It said the substance of its appeal was a request for a waiver of the requirement to advertise the position and this was refused.

Ms Gordon-Pamplin has argued that the church had missed its deadline to request the waiver. The minister said last month that until 2014 different policies were in place for churches but that since then they had to abide by the same rules as companies and charities.

“In 2014, everyone started with the same level playing field,” she said. “It’s natural to push back, to say ‘I didn’t have to do this before’ but the older system and procedures have been superseded.”

Cole Simons, Acting Minister of Home Affairs, told a press conference on January 4 that the two factors behind Ms Gordon-Pamplin’s decision to uphold the denial of the work permit were the failure to advertise the post and the failure of the applicant to provide accurate and complete information.

“There is no automatic waiver for any religious denomination on the island,” Mr Simons said. “Pastoral positions have been regularly advertised since the policy came into effect and all denominations have complied.”

On January 6, Ms Gordon-Pamplin said: “Before I would consider the application, I noted that the church had been given a deadline of October 16 to comply with the letter of September 16 to advertise the position or request a waiver of advertisement together with the requisite fee.

“The church did not comply and I refused the application on October 20. A letter to that effect was sent to the church.”

The Royal Gazette’s Pati request asked for the number of work permits held by churches and details of those work permits, as well as records showing the reasons why any unadvertised church positions did not have to be advertised.

Chief Immigration Officer Danette Ming, in her response, refused to provide records showing the reasons and said she was willing to give only a summary, by way of citing the relevant section of the work-permit policy.

Dr Ming said disclosing the records could “undermine ... the deliberative process employed by the Department of Immigration and inhibit and/or remove the privilege of free and frank discussions”.

She wrote: “In the case at hand, it is more important to avoid undermining [or reasonably undermining] the ability to have free and frank discussions within the Department of Immigration, in accordance with the deliberative process, than it is to disclose information for the sake of promoting transparency, accountability, public understanding and involvement in the democratic process.”

The records that were disclosed show that St Paul AME Church was given a waiver allowing it to bypass the advertising rule for a part-time musician post last year. A work permit was issued for the position on March 30.

The department’s work-permit policy allows waivers for advertising to be issued in certain circumstances, including where a person is uniquely qualified for a position. Short-term work permits are automatically exempt from the requirement to advertise in certain circumstances.

UPDATE: this story has been amended to add a sidebar explaining the waivers breakdown

• To view the data, the Department of Immigration’s Pati response and its work permit policy, click on the PDF links under “Related Media”