On behalf of 9,000 Ministry of Defence specialists, national secretary Steve Jary said: “The terms of reference for the review say it will look for ‘further reductions'. This pre-judges the outcome of the review.

“We have no confidence that this will be a proper review at all.It has all the hallmarks of a pre-election ploy to match the Tories’ arbitrary call for a 25 per cent cut.

“MOD civil servants are being used as a political football at a time when they are struggling to provide support to the front line. The 33 per cent cut since 1997 has left them stretched to breaking point.

“Prospect would have welcomed a proper review. We believe there is a strong case for the good value for money provided by the MOD civil service. The review must look at the balance of military to civilian staff and needs to assess what work can best be done by civilians.

Civilians come at half the price of uniformed staff. The question for the public is: ‘Do you want to pay twice as much for work to be done and which could be done by a civilian?’

The union says there are thousands of posts occupied by military staff, which should be filled by civilians. The MOD’s own capitation rates - detailing the total costs of employing military staff and civilians - show that, in most grades and ranks, the cost of military staff is around twice as much.