An independent think tank is appealing for sponsorship to carry out an in-depth review of the civil service, as one of its members claims that corruption is a problem and that civil servants are dictating policy.

Michael Markham, treasurer of the Foundation for Bermuda Studies, says he believes a detailed analysis of every branch of the civil service is needed and hopes the organisation can raise $125,000 to carry out the study.

He told that though he did not have evidence, he believed corruption was occurring, claiming: "I have to be able to prove it.

"Corruption is a big thing. Inefficient administration of the civil service leads to corruption. I believe that Bermuda society is in denial over the issue of corruption."

Mr. Markham's claims come a fortnight after former civil servant Harrison Isaac Jr. was jailed for more than four-and-a-half years in New York for defrauding the Accountant General's department.

And they arrive in the wake of senior civil servants receiving a big salary increase in April and criticism of their performance in the Government's own recently-published draft sustainable development plan.

Mr. Markham said that after carrying out a preliminary study he believed civil servants were making policy.

"That's unconstitutional," he said. "There was a number of conflicts between setting policy and what the public perception of it was and who is controlling these things."

He said a small clique of mandarins ? the majority of them former Berkeley Institute students ? were the ones truly wielding power in Government.

"Everybody knows that Berkeleyites run everything. Senior civil servants are a very closely-knit group and in my opinion there is a powerful group of people that is influencing the country but it's under the surface.

"The Government is giving civil servants more and more power over what people would think is their own individual rights."

But the Foundation's chairman, former Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson, distanced himself from Mr. Markham's comments, insisting that they did not represent the views of the organisation, which is non-political and non-partisan.

Mr. Hodgson ? a Berkeleyite himself ? said he would like the Foundation to carry out a study as he believed the number of civil servants could be reduced to make it more efficient.

But he added: "We don't have opinion. Obviously members of the foundation have views and there's no effort on the part of the foundation to limit those views. If we were doing a study we would simply identify the areas of concern.

"It's a study which would be designed to give some reality to perceptions. An independent body needs to get the facts."

A Government spokeswoman said the suggestion that civil servants were deciding policy was "clearly wrong" and that to say corruption was a big problem within the civil service was "scurrilous and not worthy of further comment".

She added: "We state categorically that the civil service has nothing to hide and did not object to reviews in the past, undertaken by the UK's National School of Government.

"However, the civil service sees no merit in being reviewed by a body that ? to our knowledge ? hasn't demonstrated expertise in this field, and one that chooses to go the media without having the courtesy to approach us first or even advise their chairman of their intentions."

Armell Thomas, president of the body which represents civil servants, the Bermuda Public Services Union, said it was hard to prove corruption because of people's unwillingness to blow the whistle.

"It's difficult to accept corruption but it does happen," he said. "In a small island like this, the biggest thing right now is that nobody wants to press charges, nobody wants to talk."