The size of Parliament should be slashed, the SAGE Commission has recommended.

And the SAGE Commission said the Civil Service suffered from weak leadership — and called for poor performers to be fired, early retirement schemes and pay cuts, with the highest-paid bearing the brunt of the reductions and fixed term appointments for senior officials.

The Commission also suggested that many areas in Government — including the airport, roads management and waste and water management — could be farmed out to the private sector or turned into quangos, while areas like public transport, the prison service and land and building maintenance could be outsourced.

The massive report on improving Government efficiency said the House of Assembly should be cut from 36 members to 30 — and Cabinet should also be cut down to eight ministers, including the Premier.

And it said that — in the meantime — Ministers and MPs should take an immediate pay cut in line with the cuts already agreed with Civil Servants.

The SAGE Commission said that the cost of running government should be cut by 15 percent — $911,000 down on the current $6.079 million.

The report said: “As our elected and appointed representatives address the Island’s economic challenges, the SAGE Commission believes they have an opportunity to demonstrate their belief that the sacrifice required to regain Bermuda’s financial footing must be shared by all.”

In addition, the report warned that the cost of pension schemes for Parliamentarians and the public service are massively underfunded by nearly $1 billion, while the contributory benefits scheme paid into by all Bermudians is underfunded by $2 billion.

The report said: “The stark reality is that promises made regarding pensions will have to be broken.”

Finance Minister Bob Richards — who commissioned the report — told Parliament yesterday that Government will review the report and hold a debate on its recommendations in the House of Assembly.

The SAGE report also said the number of government departments should be cut — from 72 to 52 — while quangos and other bodies where government has administrative responsibility should also be reduced.

And it recommends that a new authority to look at privatising services should look at selling off all or part of a variety of services, including airport operations, roads management, prisons, ports and public transport.

the report said: “While there are pockets of efficiency and areas of measurable effectiveness throughout the Civil and Public Service, they are the exception rather than the rule.”

It added: “There is ample evidence that some areas of Government are undertaking functions that are inefficiently delivered; in other areas, Government should not be undertaking the function in the first place.”

The SAGE report said that recommendations on the size of the legislature and the number of Ministers would need changes to the Constitution — which could be made now, but would not take effect until the next general election.

But the report added: “These cost savings do not equal the targeted 15 percent. We therefore recommend that the remaining areas of the legislature’s budget be reduced to make up the difference and/or further reductions in the salary and wages of Ministers and Members of the Legislature.”

The SAGE report added: “We believe these actions will underscore to the Bermuda community that our Parliamentarians are serious about addressing the country’s debt crisis and that leadership in this regard begins at the top.”

Mr Richards told MPs: “I would like to formally congratulate and thank the chairman, Mr Brian Duperreault and the rest of the SAGE Commission, indeed all committee chairs, committee members and contributors, for the excellent quality of this report, a report which stands as testament to what our invisible resource, ie our intellectual capital, can accomplish when it is generally accepted that something has to be done.

“Also the Commission is to be commended on the open and transparent manner in which it went about its business. The keen interest that the public has taken in this process speaks to the level of concern among Bermudians about how their Government is run.”