New codes of conduct will let civil servants know where they stand and help to improve their usefulness to the public it was claimed on Thursday night.

The head of the Civil Service, Stanley Oliver also said Government employees could gain much by moving around the service and picking up new skills. The initiative comes from the recent Civil Service review aimed at revamping operations.

Civil Servants attended a meeting at the Bermuda Public Servants Association building Thursday night to hear about changes, with the main topics being their new rule book and training and succession planning.

Mr. Oliver said the old 1,000-page rule book Government officials worked under was so antiquated it was not helpful and had been modified so much it was unworkable.

A new code of conduct of around 50 pages will be issued to each civil servant soon.

Mr. Oliver said: "Managers will be in a better position to ensure conduct so the Bermudian public is far more well served.'' Employees were also told about the need for change.

Mr. Oliver said: "A lot of people in the service for many years have a particular comfort zone, we are trying to alter that.

"People feel fearful of moving into a different environment or job.'' Mr. Oliver said there weren't enough Bermudians to go around but much could be gained by people moving between departments.

"If you have a person in a ministry a long time not functioning as well as you might like a new person will probably do it differently.'' He said Ianthia Wade went to TCD for a spell and had made a big difference.

"She did a review and did a decent job working with the staff serving the public. That's the bigger picture.'' BPSA General Secretary Ed Ball said employees could gain by moving about.

He said: "It provides them with another avenue of utilising their skills.

Just working in a different department provides you with different aspects of work.'' He said the civil service was also looking at cutting down on wastage and using computers and e-mail more to speed up service and cut down on queuing.

High flyers will also be picked out for fast tracking said Mr. Ball.

And Mr. Ball said his union was in principle in favour of performance-related pay, another suggestion to improve performance from the Civil Service Review conducted by UK experts in 1999.

But he said the details would have to be negotiated with Government.