Ministry of Defence staff reacted angrily to the announcement today of swingeing job cuts, warning that it would undermine their ability to support the Armed Forces both at home and on overseas operations.

1,000 civilian staff at the Ministry’s Whitehall headquarters are to be made redundant over the next 3 years, a move which union officials said was based on a desire to meet arbitrary job cut targets and did not take into account the impact on an increasingly stretched military.

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU), said it was difficult to see how the cuts would not have a “damaging impact” on support for frontline services.

But the Ministry insisted the reverse was true, claiming that the job losses - amounting to a third of non-military personnnel - were necessary to improve efficiency and enable it to better respond to priorities.

It said the “streamlining” would release savings of at least £50 million per year, which could be reinvested in frontline operations.

Three hundred military posts are also to be cut, though staff will not be made redundant but relocated to fill other gaps. A further 800 civilian jobs will be relocated outside London by 2010.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, maintained that the measures would improve rather than undermine support for the Armed Forces.

“This package of measures will radically change the way the MoD works," he said. "It will make the department more agile and better able to respond to the needs of those on operations. Operations are rightly where the focus of the MoD should be.”

He also rejected union claims that the cuts were disproportionately targeting the lowest-paid staff while new senior posts with six-figure salaries were simultaneously being created.

“Ministers, Chiefs of Staff and our most senior officials will lead this process by example and with greater direct accountability for areas and budgets,” Browne said.

The Conservatives reacted cautiously to the plans, suggesting they were part of “Gordon Brown’s spin” and of questionable benefit.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said: “We welcome efficiency savings that can redirected towards the frontline, but any cuts in our capabilities would be completely unacceptable.”

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are increasingly raising concerns of overstretch in the Armed Forces in the face of protracted operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The government earlier this month announced a £400 million cash injection to pay for military operation on top of the defence budget laid out in July. Critics, including Mr Fox, claim the extra funds will be insufficient to prevent cuts on the frontline, noting a drop of 1.7 percentage points in the share of total government spending on defence between 1998 and 2006 despite increasing overseas engagement.

The announcement also raises the potential for strikes by MoD staff, coming as PCSU members continue to vote on industrial action in protest at the government’s drive to slash 100,000 jobs from the civil service.

Andy Bye of the Prospect Union, which represents 12,000 MoD staff including engineers, scientists, logistics support and telecommunications staff, called upon the Defence Select Committee to scrutinise the plans.

Staff were concerned that the 30 percent cut in head office personnel would not be matched by a corresponding reduction in workload, leaving them struggling to cope with the vital work of providing back-up for frontline operations, he said.

“While we welcome moves to make a more focused and efficient department, MoD seems to have plucked a headcount reduction figure from the air rather than undertake a detailed analysis of areas where streamlining could be achieved.”

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