Bermuda's top civil servant -- Cabinet Secretary Leo Mills.

PLP press officer Corey Butterfield went on the offensive after Premier Jennifer Smith was accused of misleading the public during questions on a major review of the Civil Service and proposals for a downsized Cabinet and fewer MPs.

Mr. Butterfield condemned the leak of the confidential document -- and the Opposition United Bermuda Party for apparently condoning the breach of Civil Service secrecy rules.

And he said: "If the Cabinet and senior civil servants were privy to this review and discussed it in their own meetings, they could pick and choose from this report the things which they thought would work for Bermuda.'' Mr. Butterfield -- who speaks for the party, not Government -- said: "If it's curious that I would answer this, it's more curious that the Cabinet Secretary hasn't come out and said this.

"The Cabinet Secretary is responsible for civil servants -- and a civil servant breached confidence.'' But Mr. Mills yesterday hit back that there was no evidence that a civil servant was responsible for the leak -- but added that the matter was being investigated.

He said: "In circumstances where something like this occurs, there would be, as a matter of course, inquiries made to see if it's possible to pin down that particular leak.'' But Mr. Mills added: "There were a wide number of people who had access to that report, Cabinet Ministers, heads of department, some representative organisations in the community who were consulted by the review team.

"It's very difficult to say with any precision who might have leaked it. It's unfair to turn the lights of speculation on civil servants necessarily. That does not necessarily hold true at all.'' Last month Ms Smith insisted that the composition of Parliament was not part of the review, citing Constitutional grounds.

But after the UK-based review team's report was leaked, reducing the size of Cabinet was its main recommendation.

The report -- while admitting that Constitutional change would be needed to bring in single-seat constituencies and new electoral areas -- added that the balance in favour of change was "incontrovertible''.

But it pointed out that power to reduce the size of Cabinet already existed and would not need Constitutional change -- recommending a cut from 13 to just eight Ministries.

Mr. Butterfield justified his intervention in the row by citing a November 1998 PLP advertisement in which Ms Smith wrote of cutting down on waste and inefficiency in Government and appointing a "scissorman or woman'' to do the job.

Civil Servant attacked Mr. Butterfield said that was a clear signal of the intention to review the operations of the civil service.

And he added: "I was doing it from the party's position -- the advertisement which came out was from the PLP and was paid for by the PLP, not the Government.'' And he called for Opposition leader Pamela Gordon to apologise for "wicked and fallacious remarks'' made about PLP MPs in a TV interview last week.

But Opposition Legislative Affairs spokesman John Barritt said: "It's indeed curious that Mr. Butterfield, who as far as I know, holds no position in Government, is now purporting to speak for the Government of this Country.

"Be that as it may, both (Opposition Leader) Ms (Pamela) Gordon and I were asked questions on the document -- it makes for very compelling reading and merited a response from us in view if what we have been asking, and indeed calling for the document to be made public.

"I've never seen the difficulty in making it public in the first place. Thank goodness someone did have the fortitude to have that report see the light of day. It's too important to be hidden behind closed doors.''