Cull of the top brass as Fox streamlines 'wasteful' MoD

Published on Monday 27 June 2011 22:46

THE biggest shake-up in the structure of the military since the end of the Second World War was announced yesterday, as Defence Secretary Liam Fox unveiled a cull of senior officers.

Dr Fox said he accepted the recommendations made by Lord Levene to streamline decision making, create a less top heavy military, control inter-service rivalries and end the "Buggins' turn" attitude to promotion.

Top of the recommendations is to create a new streamlined board where the Defence Secretary makes the decisions and the three service chiefs will be removed.

Instead, the only military voice will be a four-star commander who will take the views of the three services to meetings.

Dr Fox said this would allow the service chiefs to concentrate more on running the army, Royal Navy and RAF.

However, the move comes after the government has faced criticism from senior military officers, including First Sea Lord Sir Mark Stanhope, General Sir Peter Wall and Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant over the sustainability of operations in Libya.

The comments provoked Prime Minister David Cameron to tell military chiefs: "You do the fighting, I'll do the talking."

Dr Fox has also made it clear he wants an overall reduction in the number of senior ranked officers, although last night the MoD was unable to give any details of how many might go or where.

And Dr Fox refused to answer a question from SNP defence spokesman Angus Robertson over how many of the ten stationed in Scotland – 2.1 per cent of the total – are under threat.

However, it is understood that the Major General position at Craigiehall will almost certainly go, with the government reducing its army regional command positions from four to one.

Lord Levene said that, in a year-long review, his Defence Reform Unit found that the MoD's structure had contributed to a "loss of control" over budgets.

Regaining control over spending was "essential" to providing the military capability the country needs, he said.

Individual service chiefs are to be given increased control of equipment programmes and flexibility within their budgets, but are to be held more robustly to account for their performance, Dr Fox told the House of Commons.

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The military will be represented on the slimmed-down Defence Board by the Chief of Defence Staff – the head of the armed forces, currently General Sir David Richards – rather than the individual chiefs of each service. A new "cost-conscious mentality" will drive a greater focus on affordability throughout the MoD. And a new approach to personnel will aim to ensure promotions go to the right person for the job, rather than operating on the principle of "Buggins' turn", said Dr Fox.

All non-frontline posts across the MoD are to be reviewed, beginning with senior and management levels and including an assessment of the most cost-effective balance of regular military, reservists, civil servants and contractors.

"I have made it clear for some time that I wanted a smaller defence board so that we take decisions in a much more coherent way, so that the alignment of the responsibility for spending and government policy are in one place but at the same time to ensure that those who are responsible for running the armed forces have greater freedom to do so," said the Defence Secretary.

"It is all about ensuring that we get better management, because – as the report says, and as we have known for some time – the way in which the MoD is run has not really been to the benefit of defence as a whole.

"There has been too much waste and there has been too much lack of control over major projects and we intend to bring that back."

General Richards welcomed Lord Levene's recommendations: "The focus on strategic planning and operations and the restoration of control to the service chiefs will be vital to maintaining operational effectiveness as we implement the Strategic Defence and Security Review while fighting two wars."

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said Labour broadly welcomed the changes. But he added there had been a "fracture" in the relationship between ministers and the service chiefs, reflected in Mr Cameron's comments last week.

"For some this announcement of the removal of the three service chiefs from the defence board will be seen as a structural confirmation of that strident sentiment," said Mr Murphy.

Tory Defence Select Committee chairman, James Arbuthnot, welcomed a "truly radical shake-up of the MoD which they have needed for decades".

He said: "I am delighted to hear the chiefs of the Armed Forces will get more control over their budgets."

Meanwhile, former Labour defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said establishing a joint command was "absolutely the right thing to do".

But he questioned "how real and how deep" the plan would go, adding: "It's no good if it isn't real and people's allegiances belong entirely and exclusively to single services".

Dr Fox's statement was broadly welcomed by four former chiefs of the defence staff.

However, Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig of Radley sought clarification of the extent to which individual service chiefs could "veer and haul" within their funding allocations.

Field Marshal Lord Bramall described the Levene review as "yet another chapter in the steady evolutionary process of the higher organisation of defence, going back some 47 years".