More than 1,000 senior British military officials face the axe over the next eight years under confidential Ministry of Defence cost cutting plans, it has been revealed.
The Guardian has obtained an internal Whitehall document that details plans to cull the number of generals, admirals and senior civilian posts in an attempt to address the "top heavy" nature of the armed forces.
The author of the report, Jonathan Slater, the director general of transformation and strategy at the MoD, suggests that 700 top posts will need to be cut over the next three years with another 335 scrapped before 2020.
"The simply truth is that the defence senior cadre is larger than we can afford, is judged to be out of proportion with a reducing manpower base and also with modern working practices and societal tolerances," he says.
"The perception, both within and beyond the department, that defence in bureaucratic and top heavy must be addresses; it undermines the confidence of our own staff, parliament, the public and media and has a detrimental impact on the delivery of front line and other defence outputs.
He adds: "The size of the defence workforce has fallen over recent decades but reductions in the umber of leaders has not kept pace."
There are currently 3,620 middle-ranking civil servants and military officers but this needs to drop to 2,724 by 2020, Slater argues.
He also suggests the number of one star ranking officers should be cut from 550 to 423 by 2020 and the number of those with a two star rank, which includes rear admirals, should be cut to 116 from 152.
The perception that the MoD is top heavy has been held for some time. A report in 2008 revealed that the Royal Navy had more admirals than ships.