The Ministry of Justice is trying to cut thousands of public service jobs

Thousands of civil service jobs are likely to become available at the Ministry of Defense over the next five years as part of efforts to make the department more efficient, Permanent Secretary David Williams has told MPs.

Williams told a Defense Committee session this morning that he expected to see a 10% reduction in staffing in the region over the course of the current parliament. He said the current number is around 56,800 – with the implication that the Ministry of Defense will have at least 5,000 full-time equivalent staff by the end of the decade.

The Permanent Secretary’s comments follow Defense Secretary John Healey’s announcement yesterday that the MoD is speeding up the decommissioning of five Royal Navy ships, 31 helicopters and 46 obsolete drones to save up to £500 million.

Healey said the decisions – which come ahead of the results of the current strategic defense review, which was released in July and won’t report until next year – was prompted by the “billion pound black holes in defense plans” the new government inherited.

The defense secretary said further reforms would see Williams “leading a leaner department with more policy power and influence”. But he did not go into more details.

Asked by MPs today about this detail, Williams gave a long answer. He said he expected the department to become leaner “in a number of ways”, with streamlined processes and bureaucracy, as well as faster and more efficient 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 Defense Department is trying to increase staffing by reducing reliance on contractors, such as in Defense Digital. He said increasing “civilization” in other areas would also make sense. Perm sec cited home medical services as an example.

However, he said recruitment, or civilisation, should still be within the overall expectation of a 10 per cent smaller Ministry – suggesting that some parts of the organization could face bigger staff cuts.

“To create an open space for permanent recruitment, where we currently rely on professional services, or to create an open space for civilization, we actually need to take some of the core roles further to strengthen ourselves,” said he.

“But I think as a minimum a 10% reduction over the life of this parliament is a good starting point.”

Williams said there are currently “no plans for specific layoff programs” to cover the reduced number of employees. He told MPs that such decisions would be informed by the ongoing strategic defense review.

“We will look at the balance between inflow, retraining and outflow,” he said. “But I think it’s something we’ll want to keep under review as the recommendations from the SDR come forward.”

Defense Secretary Healey told MPs yesterday that the Government’s plans to “create a stronger UK defense centre” would deliver better value for money, better outcomes for the armed forces and leave the Ministry of Defense more capable to implement SDR.

Healey said that from later this year the Chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, will oversee a new strategic military headquarters where he will formally command individual service chiefs for the first time. The defense secretary said the new strategic headquarters would be “central to prioritizing investment spending across the services”.

He added that another pillar of the government’s reforms would be a new national director of armaments – a position for which recruitment is ongoing.

In parliament, Healey was asked why yesterday’s announcement of accelerated ship decommissioning was being made before the end of DST.

He said two of the ships – the landing craft HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion – were effectively decommissioned by the last government but “ministers were simply unwilling to talk to the public and parliament about it” at the time .

Healey said 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 condition.