The Department of Labour (DoL) acknowledged in 2012 that its communication with the DHA on these matters was limited. The DoL sits on the Immigration Advisory Board which reviews quotas (albeit erratically given the ad hoc functioning of the Board), however it does not have direct access to DHA databases. Decisions taken in terms of quota allocations between 2007 and 2011 were therefore almost entirely at the discretion of the DHA minister. Interactions between Sector Education and TVaining Authorities (SETAs), the DoL, the business sector, organised labour and academic research have been dominated by controversies around the calculation methodologies and the definition of skills shortages and skills gap (Erasmus and Breier, 2009). In a 2009 study undertaken for the DoL, the Human Sciences Research Council found large discrepancies between official estimates of skills shortages and the quota lists issued by the DHA, even in sectors identified by the government as being in crisis (Erasmus and Breier, 2009). For instance, the National Scarce Skills List (NSSL) for 2006 indicated needs in personnel amounting to more than 200 thousand, while the DHA 2007 quota lists stopped at around 24 thousand (ibid.).