Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to reduce the number of civilian personnel employed by the Ministry of Defence from 56,430 to 41,000, as set out in the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015.
Answered on
2 February 2017
The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review directed the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to reduce its civilian headcount by 30 per cent by 2020. This is Government policy and we will take an approach to this that does not diminish either our people or Defence.
We need to be sure that we are always getting maximum value for the taxpayer. Wherever possible we will rebalance our investments towards the front line - this means reshaping the MOD Civil Service workforce to focus on its core Civil Servant roles.
A central part of making the MOD Civil Service more innovative and more efficient is reorganising work so that it is done in the best place possible - by civilian, military or contractor personnel. In a number of cases, this may mean using alternative delivery models, such as outsourcing, amongst others.