massive shake-up of Bermuda's jails.

A Canadian consultant reviewing the Island's prisons has produced his first recommendations -- 18 months after a shocking report revealed officers called in sick every four days.

And the Prisons Department is planning to start introducing tight new procedures to cut back on sickness absence at the end of next month.

The Royal Gazette has learnt that the first changes will aim to improve staff efficiency.

Prison Consultant Paul Oleniuk, who began the review in January, has suggested a range of improvements to streamline sick leave, annual leave and scheduled days off.

A report by Canadian analysts in July 1996 revealed that a typical officer was "probably not available for work for 63.5 of the 261 paid days of the year''.

The study, by Process Re-engineering and Environmental Consultants, said sick days were disputed between prison officers and management, adding that unscheduled days off turned staffing into a "roulette game''.

The PRET team also said: "The present shift scheduling system is designed in part to accommodate the personal preferences of officers and may be inherently inefficient.'' But Prisons Commissioner Edward Dyer last night said the new recommendations could be implemented as early as April.

"The consultant has been here for a couple of months now and he's been very busy getting up to speed with our prison system,'' he said.

"He's already made some recommendations that we are working on and soon we will have implemented some of those things.

"At the moment, we are looking at attendance administration, how we monitor attendance and accommodate the environments for sick leave and annual leave.

"We're taking an overall look at time scheduling as well as people in training and we're working on all of these things with the aim of putting some more useful policies and information in place.

"We did have a problem with sickness a year or so ago,'' added Mr. Dyer.

"And we're working primarily on staffing at the moment.

"Inmates will eventually get some benefit from the changes too, but first we are trying to put a few things in place to make the system easier to manage.'' He said Prison Department executives were already examining dossiers of recommendations from Mr. Oleniuk.

Mr. Dyer added: "We are holding meetings now and some of the first recommendations will hopefully be in place within a few weeks.

"We have a deadline to get some things accomplished by the end of the year.'' Mr. Oleniuk will not make any findings public until much later in the year, added Mr. Dyer.

The review, costing $188,000, is expected to last two years.

The PRET report, which also slammed prison management and security operations, said the move from Casemates to the new Westgate Correctional Facility was badly planned and executed.

It also criticised equipment at the East End Prison Farm and Co-Ed Facility.

Earlier this month, Government sidelined $450,000 in the budget to pay for a new halfway house for inmates about to leave prison.