Defence cuts threaten forces’ skills

The armed forces risk losing vital skills because of the speed of the Government’s defence cuts, the Whitehall spending watchdog warned today.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said the Ministry of Defence was being forced to reduce military and civilian personnel before it had drawn up detailed plans as to how it would operate in future.

It warned the MoD faced “profound changes” if it was to continue meeting its commitments with fewer people. The MoD is in the process of cutting 25,000 armed forces personnel and 29,000 civilian staff by 2015 in the biggest round of military cuts since the Cold War.

The reductions, set out in the Strategic Defence and Security Review, are intended to reduce costs by £4.1 billion as part of the drive to plug a £38bn “black hole” in the defence budget.

The NAO said it had “little choice other than to make cost cuts early” if the spending review targets were to be met.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the NAO had found the redundancy programme was working well.