Trade unions representing over ninety thousand industrial, technical, scientific and administrative civilian staff in the MoD made the claims as they launched a detailed 14-page document. This sets out how, in spite of a track record of public sector success, the private sector is poised to take plum contracts in defence support services with the government still underwriting any risks, as happened in Railtrack, British Energy and the National Air Traffic Services.

900 separate reviews
Branding the MoD the 'Ministry of Reviews' the unions highlight the recent McKinsey Report into the Defence Logistics Organisations which found that at one point around 900 reviews of one type or another were being conducted. In one review alone, the Partnered Defence Supply Chain Initiative, 24 defence companies have been brought into the heart of the MoD to look at a range of support services and then to bid for the work. The unions have questioned the probity of this approach. In Labour's first term, the workforce co-operated in change and delivered improvements in the support services to the MoD. Now the ministry is being seen as the 'arch privatiser' with a 'public bad, private good' approach which is labelled by the unions as "daft, damaging and demoralising dogma."

Unions point to the Partnered Defence Supply Chain Initiative as the worst example of an approach which could lead to mass privatisation on a scale not seen for 15 years, as the epitome of the MoD's private sector preference.

Learn the lessons of public sector success and private sector failure
The unions make clear that across a range of support services the public sector has delivered. Examples, such as Defence Transport, Airfield Support Services, the Defence Bills Agency, the Pay & Personnel Agency, are cited as evidence of critical services where savings and improvements have been delivered.

The MoD should also learn the lesson, they argue, from Canada where the Canadian government abandoned privatisation of their defence supply chain as being both costly and damaging in operational terms. The unions add that as the consequences of failure are so great risk can never be fully transferred. There should, they say, be a full evaluation of private sector failures and a moratorium on future projects so that costly repetitions of fiascos like Railtrack can be avoided.

Call for vision and leadership
The joint unions have outlined a five-point plan for the future based on a renewed joint commitment to high quality defence support services. In it they call for long-term vision and engagement with the workforce and their trade unions to promote efficient and effective services within MoD based on comprehensive and fair evaluations of projects. Specifically, they have called for the scrapping of the Partnered Defence Supply Chain Initiative and the moratorium on future projects.

A meeting between the joint unions and the Defence Ministers is planned for March.