One of the big defence stories of this week was the announcement of a redundancy programme at the Ministry of Defence. Not, as it happens, the tale we reported on Tuesday, but one that the media (including, ahem, the Guardian) completely missed.
The day before the RAF set out its plans for 1,000 redundancies, the MoD also started a voluntary redundancy programme that could lead to up to 25,000 civilian staff losing their jobs over the next four years. That's a third of all the civilians working for the ministry.
But because they are civil servants, there isn't much sympathy for them in the media jungle. Civil servants aren't exactly everyone's cup of tea. The Defence Management Journal warned two years ago that they were likely to be in the firing line once the cuts began. And in some of the tabloids, civil servants are a source of endless parody, mockery and amusement. They are overpaid, over-indulged, and occasionally rather fat.
Hmm. The unions tell another story. Prospect's general secretary Steve Jary, who doesn't appear to be Wolfie Smith in disguise, says that the MoD will shoot itself in the foot if it gets rid of so many people. He makes quite a convincing argument - part of which is that the ministry is already paying millions to outside consultants, and will have to pay more if the in-house expertise is lost. There are other ways of making budget cuts, that won't lead to so many people losing their jobs. That's what he will say tomorrow when he meets the defence secretary Liam Fox. But will Dr Fox dare to give him a fair hearing?
