Liam Fox says defence jobs may be spared if savings are found elsewhere

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Liam Fox says defence jobs may be spared if savings are found elsewhere

'No political imperative' to lose 25,000 MoD posts and union leaders are confident cost-cutting can keep many staff in work

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has told unions that if they can find convincing ways of cutting the Ministry of Defence's budget then thousands of threatened civilian jobs might be saved.

Union leaders say they were told there was no "political imperative" to lose 25,000 ministry jobs, the figure set out in last year's strategic defence and security review, and that ministers would look seriously at any fresh proposals to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies. A meeting between the two sides has been scheduled for next week to discuss ideas.

Steve Jary, national secretary of the union Prospect, which represents 7,000 MoD staff, said it should be possible to save up to a third of the jobs in danger. Prospect has suspended the threat of industrial action pending further talks.

"We were pleased with the meeting because the defence secretary accepted that the 25,000 figure is not sacrosanct," Jary said. "Previously we had been told there was a political imperative to cut civilian jobs, but that seems to have changed.

"We have argued that the figure was arbitrary and he seemed to accept the point. Now we have to give them our proposals, but we are making good progress."

Though the apparent softening of the MoD's position will encourage civil servants, it may come as a surprise to armed forces chiefs who are having to draw up their own redundancy programmes for the army, RAF and Royal Navy.

The budget squeeze at the MoD has affected all three services with the strategic review demanding the loss of up to 17,000 jobs from the military within four years.

The RAF has already given details of its compulsory redundancy programme, while the navy and the army will report early next month.

Union leaders, though, are convinced that they have found other ways of cutting the budget.

Using documents obtained from freedom of information requests, they have discovered a huge increase in the amount paid by the MoD to outside consultants for procurement advice ? a job formerly done in-house.

"Some of this spending is just obscene," said Jary. "The increase is one of the consequences of previous cuts in civilian staff at the department, and now these consultants are being used in an ad hoc way and it is very expensive.

"The MoD is now paying a whole range of companies to provide assistance for technical support because it has lost the expertise to do this from within."

He said one external computer consultant appeared to have earned �180,000 for 80 days' work.

The union says this is the main area where savings could be made ? the MoD is looking to save �650m from the civilian redundancy programme, and Prospect says half of that could be covered by using existing MoD staff rather than outsiders.

Another saving could be found in reducing the number of highest ranking officers, who are being given civilian jobs because no other posts for them can be found.

Sources close to Fox said the unions would need very credible ideas if they wanted to argue the cuts could be made in a different way.

"We are having to tackle a �38bn overspend. That is the position we are in at the moment. It wasn't an ideological measure to make 25,000 people redundant, we just have to reduce costs.

"That hasn't changed. He was sympathetic to their case and made it very clear that if there were other ways [of making cuts] he would look at them."

An MoD spokesman added: "In the current economic climate, we have to make savings and we have to balance the MoD budget."

Nick Hopkins

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds