By David Williams
13 August 2010
Defence Secretary Liam Fox has outlined plans for reforming his department, emphasising the need for it to become more efficient, cut costs, and to tailor the armed forces to the threats Britain faces.
Speaking in Westminster today, Fox said the Ministry of Defence must become leaner and less centralised.
The defence secretary also appeared to cast doubt on whether Trident, the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, would be replaced.
The programme, which would cost £20bn to replace, has been the subject of negotiations between the MoD and Treasury in recent weeks. Chancellor George Osborne said last month that the deterrent should be funded from the MoD’s budget – a shift from the current arrangement in which the bill is met by the Treasury.
Today Fox said the UK should ‘divest ourselves of the capabilities which we are unlikely to need in a world where the moral climate demands precision weaponry and where the battle space increasingly embraces the unmanned and cyber domains’.
The defence secretary argued that MoD procurement should flow from a defence strategy, which in turn should be led by foreign policy. He criticised the department’s past purchasing for being prone to over-specification and delays.
Fox said a forthcoming strategic defence and security review would define the shape of the forces in years to come, focusing them on the most immediate dangers while maintaining capacity to adapt to new threats.
He also suggested that the review would lead to staff cuts at all levels of the MoD. ‘We cannot demand efficiency from the lower ranks while exempting those at the top,’ he said.
Civil service unions are already making the case against job losses.
Steve Jary, national secretary of the Prospect union, warned against cutting civilian staff: ‘What the public need to understand is that MoD civilians are there to support the military.
‘If they are to be efficient, armed forces of a certain size
require civilian support of a certain size. The vast majority of the MoD’s
running costs are tied-up in military jobs. There are thousands of
non-operational roles carried out by uniformed staff for no good reason except
that military chiefs have the ear of ministers.’
Meanwhile the Public and Commercial Services union noted that civilian numbers were already 22% down over the past six years, and claimed the ministry was already at ‘breaking point.’
Deputy general secretary Hugh Lanning said: ‘At the same time as handing millions of pounds to consultants and private companies, Fox announces plans to cut the jobs of loyal and hard-working staff.’
