There are nearly as many civil servants in Britain’s defence department as soldiers, and more office staff than the whole navy and air force combined, figures obtained by a former defence minister have revealed.
The number of civilians working in the UK government’s Ministry of Defence — part of what some decry as the permanent ‘deep state’ in Westminster — has increased six per cent this decade, rising to 63,702 in April of this year from 2020. At the same time, the British Army has continued its long drawdown, hitting 72,510 in April, and is predicted to dip below 70,000 next year.
The other military arms are considerably smaller. The Royal Navy, remarkably for an island nation which depends so much on the sea for its prosperity, including the Royal Marines had a trained strength this year of just 28,840. The Royal Air Force stood at 28,420, meaning combined those two forces number just 57,260, thousands fewer than the backroom Civil Servants administering the military in Whitehall.
British newspaper of record The Times cites remarks by former defence minister Lord Lee of Trafford, the Junior Minister for Defence Procurement from 1983 to 1986 under Margaret Thatcher, who later defected from the Tories to the Liberal Democrats, who uncovered the figures. He said reducing the number of civilian employees in the armed forces to free up resources for more troops should be considered to recover the military from its “pretty deplorable state”.
Lord Lee particularly referred to the differential in public sector productivity, which has essentially flatlined in the UK this century compared to private sector growth. He said: “We have ended up in a situation where there are 63,000 civil servants employed when the army itself is only 72,000 strong. I can’t think of a large private sector firm that hasn’t, through efficiencies and modern telecommunication, reduced their headcount and yet in the MoD, it has actually increased.
“The whole thing is extraordinarily lopsided and surely it’s time to take a really hard look at these [figures].”
The dramatic illustration in the growth of Civil Servants administering the military while the military itself continues to dwindle comes amid growing concerns amid political figures that the British armed forces may not actually be in a fit state to fight a war they believe may be coming. The UK’s new Defence Minister John Healey said last week it was his view that while the UK — like many Western nations — was capable of engaging in military operations, it was not capable of fighting an actual war against a neer-peer adversary, such as seen in Ukraine these past years.
As reported, Healey responded to remarks by the head of the British Army that the UK armed forces needs to “double then triple our fighting power” quickly saying the UK had to be more able to deter threats. Yet he slipped into the apparently long-standing Ministry orthodoxy of insisting that it is possible to do more with less by investing in new technology. Yet as stated by a House of Lords report earlier this year, the true lesson of the Ukraine conflict is any advantages in drones and other innovations is short lived as a capable opponent and quickly adapt. Instead, mass of fighting men remains critical.
That House of Lords report stated:
The size and capability of the UK Armed Forces is predicated on a now apparently out-dated idea that any unexpected conflicts would be resolved in weeks, which has very much not been the case with the Ukraine War. The Lords’ report notes it has been the case a shrinking manpower has been explained away by increasing technical sophistication making up the capability, but argues this position too has been proven as wrong-footed.
The report stated: “…the UK has a well-trained and well-equipped force, but that it is too small and inadequately set up for large, prolonged conflicts like the one in Ukraine… the use of advanced technology has at times been used to justify smaller troop numbers. The war in Ukraine, however, has shown that in a conflict between two technologically capable states, technology is not a magic bullet that can swiftly end a war.”
