As Britain’s Army continues to shrink to record lows, the Ministry of Defence is hiring what is believed to be the highest paid civil servant in Britain.
The National Armaments Director (NAD) will receive a pay package of up to £640,000 per year, made up of a salary of £400,000 and a maximum bonus of £240,000 per year.
That’s 3.7 times more than Sir Keir Starmer's £172,153 salary as Prime Minister and 4 times more than Defence Secretary John Healey’s pay package, despite the Director being accountable to the Defence Secretary on a ‘day-to-day basis.’
It’s also the equivalent of 25 new recruit soldiers in the British Army (£25,000) or 16 new officers (£39,000).
National Armaments Director versus other salaries
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It comes as Britain’s Army is projected to fall below 70,000 members this year, meaning the entire British Army couldfitinsideWembleywith20,000seatstospare.
The salary goes without mentioning a gold-plated civil service pension with 28.9 per cent employer contributions, meaning taxpayers will be paying £115,880 into the new director’s pension pot.
That brings the total yearly renumeration to £755,880, one of the highest paid civil servants in Britain.
This title used to belong to Mark Thurston- former boss of HS2- whose £640,000 salary included pay in lieu of pension.
The new director’s overriding objective will be to ‘ensure that the UK’s manufacturing base can provide our Armed Forces with the capability, resources and capacity required to meet any future challenge’, says the job advert.
‘Widening the UK’s defence ecosystem’, ‘driving international collaboration’ and ‘leading the MOD alongside the Permanent Secretary, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Defence Nuclear’, also feature highly on the advert.
National Armaments Director's roles
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The new chief will oversee the spending of an £11billion budget. They will receive 30 days off a year, plus eight bank holidays and one privilege day, the equivalent to eight weeks off a year.
Defence Secretary John Healey argues the new director could save the taxpayer up to £10billion and bulk up the Armed Forces.
He said: “At this time, we must rearm Britain. I see this as a new FTSE 100 company within the MoD, tasked with getting the very best capabilities needed into the hands of our front line forces.”
The Defence Secretary said bureaucracy had 'mired' the MoD in 'process and procedure' and led to 'duplication', with 11 different finance departments employing 2,500 people to do 'the same activity in different places'.
“We've added complexity where simplicity is needed. In procurement, we've got a situation where we employ 11 checkers for every one decision maker, so no wonder it takes an average six years for a large programme simply to get onto contract.
“[We have] a system where only two out of 49 major defence projects are now on time and on budget,” said Healey.
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The entire regular British Army could fit inside Wembley with 15,000 seats to sparePAThe job comes as part of a new senior command structure in the MoD to improve accountability and efficiency.
It will be part of a ‘quad’ made up of the Chief of the Defence Staff, the Permanent Secretary, the Chief of Defence Nuclear and the new National Armaments Director.
On this, Healey said: “I have been in too many meetings when I ask, "Who’s leading this? Who’s responsible for getting this done?" And no one is able to give me a single clear answer.”
However, Conservative Shadow Armed Forces Minister, Mark Francois, hit out at the salary, stating: “This is a very high salary for a public official.
“The acid test will be whether the post-holder - whoever it turns out to be - will actually be given the personal authority to cut through the MoD’s Byzantine procurement bureaucracy and effect positive change.
“So, in short, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating but it’s a very expensive pudding.”
It comes after Chancellor Reeves proposed to slim down the Civil Service in her Spring Statement after its wage bill hit £20billion per year.
The number of civil servants has rocketed in recent years, with governments saying this is because of Brexit and then Covid. But figures show 90,000 civil servants have been hired since the end of the pandemic.
It means Britain’s civil service headcount has hit 514,000, a rise for eight consecutive years and a high since 2004.
Reeves plans to save billions by offering civil servants voluntary redundancy packages after the growth of middle managers exploded.
Despite the massive boost in numbers and billions extra cost, civil service productivity has crashed to 1997 levels.
Critics blame this on widespread work from home practices meaning employees can mask how much work they are really doing.
They point to the case of one senior civil servant who was busted for holding three full time, fully remote senior civil service roles at the same time.
The employee was able to collect three salaries, pensions and perks for two years before a fraud squad stepped in, raising serious concerns over the efficacy of work from home.
It is not clear whether the National Armaments Director will work from home.
Defence Secretary, John Healey MP said: “Our new National Armaments Director will fundamentally change how defence partners with industry and drives defence as an engine for growth across the UK.
"The successful candidate will be vital to fixing the broken procurement system, ensuring we improve how we buy what our forces need, and fast-track the technologies of the future into the hands of our troops on the battlefield.
“The threat we face is growing; this is a serious appointment to spearhead the national arsenal, and to help make Britain secure at home and strong abroad."
