The MoD has announced more cuts to both civilian staff and the regular Army.
The cuts for MoD civilians now amount to some 32,000, or around a third of the total workforce, while for the regular Army, 20,000 jobs will be lost between 2011 and 2020.
DefenceCutsCost has argued since the Strategic and Security Defence Review (SDSR) that the cuts to defence were an ill informed knee jerk reaction to the bail out of the banks and the deficit they helped created.
We have argued that the proposed cuts to civilians supporting defence will cost more, not less in the longer term as the value for money work they undertake (they cost approximately a third less than a military officer doing the equivalent job) in supporting defence is not actually being stopped.
Instead, those left working in defence will be expected to pick up the work that was previously done by those who lost their jobs or the work will simply be sold off to contractors, who will cost more in the long term and who take on no risk responsibility for defence, that remaining with the Ministry of Defence and government.
Why then are civil servants facing the brunt of cuts within defence. They are the victims of a government whose ideological imperative is to either destroy the public sector or privatise it.
It would be interesting to see which companies have been and are successful in bidding for outsourced public sector work and compare this to funding and support given to political parties.
Civilians in defence are absolutely committed to supporting the front line. They believe that they bring value for money, professionalism and continuity to developing defence capability.
The current policy of slash and burn in defence has left the department underfunded and demoralised to the point of collapse.
The military and civilians are In Defence, For Defence.
It is about time politicians woke up to the fact that they are Destroying Defence, For Politics.
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