Thousands of civil service jobs are likely to go at the Ministry of Defence over the coming five years as part of a drive to boost efficiency at the department, permanent secretary David Williams has told MPs.
Williams said he expected to see a headcount reduction in the region of 10% over the course of the current parliament at a Defence Committee session this morning. He said present numbers are in the region of 56,800 – with the implication that the MoD will have at least 5,000 fewer full-time equivalent staff by the end of the decade.
The permanent secretary's comments follow defence secretary John Healey's announcement yesterday that the MoD is accelerating the decommissioning of five Royal Navy ships, 31 helicopters and 46 outdated drones to save up to £500m.
Healey said the decisions – which come ahead of the results of the current Strategic Defence Review, which was launched in July and will not report until next year – had been driven by the "billion-pound black holes in defence plans" that the new government inherited.
The defence secretary said further reforms would see MoD perm sec Williams "lead a leaner department, with more policy muscle and influence". But he did not go into further detail.
Asked about that detail by MPs today, Williams gave a lengthy response. He said he expected that the department would become leaner "in a number of ways", with streamlined processes and bureaucracy as well as quicker, more effective decision-making and delivery.
But he acknowledged that having fewer civil servants would be a major part of the picture.
Williams said there were some areas where the MoD is looking to increase staff numbers by reducing reliance on contractors, such as in Defence Digital. He said increasing "civilianisation" in other areas would also make sense. The perm sec cited home-base medical services as an example.
However, he said that recruitment or civilianisation would still have to come within the overall expectation of a 10% smaller MoD – suggesting some parts of the organisation could face greater headcount reductions.
"In order to create the headroom for permanent recruitment, where currently we're relying on professional services or to create headroom for civilianisation, we actually need to take some of the core roles down further to build back up," he said.
"But I think, as a minimum, a 10% reduction over the lifetime of this parliament is a good jumping-off point."
Williams said there are currently "no plans for specific redundancy programmes" to deliver the reduced headcount. He told MPs such decisions will be informed by the ongoing Strategic Defence Review.
"We'll look at the balance between inflow, retraining and outflow," he said. "But I think that's something we'll want to keep under review as the recommendations from the SDR come forward."
Yesterday, defence secretary Healey told MPs that the government's plans to "create a stronger UK defence centre" would secure better value for money, better outcomes for the armed forces, and leave the MoD better able to implement the SDR.
Healey said that from the end of this year, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, will oversee a new military strategic headquarters where he will formally command the individual service chiefs for the first time. The defence secretary said the new strategic HQ will be "central to prioritising investment spending between the services".
He added that another pillar of the government's reforms would be a new national armaments director – a post for which recruitment is under way.
In parliament, Healey was asked why yesterday's announcement of the accelerated decommissioning of the ships was being made ahead of the completion of the SDR.
He said two of the vessels – landing ships HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion – had effectively been taken out of action by the last government but "ministers had just been unwilling to level with the public and with parliament about that" at the time.
Healey said that another of the ships, the frigate HMS Northumberland, has structural damage that could cost hundreds of millions of pounds to repair and is not in a fit state to use.