The Opposition has criticised over-expenditure in the Cabinet Office, saying the Premier should lead by example in trimming its budget.

Opposition Senators yesterday said that rather than increasing this year's budget by five percent ($319,000), Dr. Ewart Brown should be following Finance Minister Paula Cox's advice to Ministers to cut departmental budgets by 10.5 percent.

Government Senate Leader David Burch provided a detailed breakdown of the Cabinet Office's budget to the Senate yesterday, on behalf of the Premier.

However, Opposition Senator Michael Fahy questioned the increase in the Cabinet Office's budget for 2008/09 from an original budget of $6,160,000 to a revised amount of $7,815,000.

Commenting on the $1.655 million increase last year he said: "That in my view is an excessive amount."

The original 2008/09 budget was $6,160,000 but the budget estimate for 2009/10 is $6,480,000 an increase of $320,000.

Sen. Fahy said Premier Dr. Ewart Brown, under whose remit the Cabinet Office falls, should be leading by example by reducing this. "It would be nice if the leader of the country was following the advice of the Ministry of Finance to reduce the budget by 10.5 percent and to lead by example," said Sen. Fahy.

He said the budget for general administration, which was originally estimated at $2,736,000 in 2008/09 had now increased to an estimate of $2,993,000 for 2009/10 a rise of $257,000.

"This is an indication of a lack of fiscal responsibility. The budget has increased by some nine percent," said Sen. Fahy. "We are talking about prudence and asking the Government to cut back but I get concerned when I see these figures."

He also questioned professional development and travel, which had an original budget of $295,000 in 2008/09 but which was then revised to $724,000. This year's budget has been estimated at $359,000 an increase of $64,000, which equates to 22 percent.

"In such an era of economic downturn I think we deserve an explanation as to why there's such a massive increase in that particular area this past year," said Sen. Fahy.

He said the Opposition were also concerned at the amount consultants were being paid.

The original estimated budget for 2008-9 was $953,000 but this was revised to $1,475 million and the estimate for this year was now set at $1,050,000 a ten percent increase ($97,000).

"Professional services more commonly known as consultants, this is one of the areas of concern for us as the Opposition," he said. "This cost $1,215 million in 2007/08 and was then budgeted at $953,000 2008/09, but now we are looking at $1,475,000.

"There doesn't seem to be a real effort to see these expenditures reduced by any real sum and we ought to keep an eye on that looking forward."

He said: "If the Minister of Finance's request had been listened to the budget would be 10.5 percent less than what we have budgeted for here."

However, Sen. Fahy said he was pleased to see the Department of Communication and Information's budget had been reduced by 11 percent, from $2,942,000 in the 2008/09 estimate to $2,618,000 for 2009/10.

Government Senator Walton Brown responded by saying although he understood the role of the Opposition to question the Budget, he hoped Senators would see the 'bigger picture'.

"We do have a very good Budget, one which is responsive to the needs of the people," he said. "If you focus on the programmes you will understand some of these increases are entirely due to initiatives by Government which the public want to see."

Sen. Brown said: "Let's look at what is being provided for. This will help us to have a much richer look at what this Budget is doing."

Commenting on travel, he said: "Everyone working out of Government has to travel. The travel that this Government undertakes is designed to accomplish the same thing to strengthen Bermuda and to strengthen our economy.

"Let's get beyond the superficiality of looking at any increase as if it is negative."

But Opposition Senate Leader Michael Dunkley said: "I am quite concerned that we don't lead by example with the Cabinet Office.

"When we heard the clarion call of cutting the Government budget by 10.5 percent, I thought it would be a hard thing to do, but I do think it would be nice in these trying economic times to focus on holding the line where we can.

"But at Cabinet we haven't been able to do that. I would hope the honourable minister (Sen. Burch) would give more specifics as to why budgets are up."

Sen. Dunkley said: "There's no doubt there's been concerns in the community and the Opposition has led the charge about travel in recent years. In the age we live in there are sometimes better ways to communicate than getting on a plane for eight hours.

"With the technology we have now I think we should do everything we can to be more productive and efficient. While travel can be the right thing to do at times, there's a lot of downtime when it is not productive."

He said: "It is clear the Cabinet Office budget isn't being adhered to. The original budget for 2008-9 was $6,160,000, but with a revision this was over $7,815,000."

Sen. Burch responded: "I do want to remind the Senate that these are estimates of revenue and expenditure."