One more person has agreed to take voluntary redundancy at Kinloss Barracks as a controversial military shake-up finally nears completion.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the fourth and final round of its job-cutting programme yesterday, with more than 1,000 posts being axed across the services.
The announcement was made one day after the National Audit Office heavily criticised the changes, saying plans to replace full-time soldiers with reservists were running six years behind schedule.
Kinloss Barracks in Moray confirmed one member of staff was leaving in the final phase.
It had already lost 79 personnel to redundancy in the third round last summer, leaving it with almost half of the 1,200 people promised by UK ministers in 2011.
A total of 160 are thought to have been made redundant at the base, now home to the 39 Engineer Regiment, since the restructuring began.
RAF Lossiemouth is already believed to have lost about 90 people as part of the cutbacks, while 40 posts are believed to have been axed at Fort George barracks near Inverness.
It was not known last night whether either were affected by yesterday’s announcement.
Across the UK a total of 1,060 redundancies were confirmed for the final round yesterday, below the 1,505 predicted.
Almost three-quarters are leaving under the voluntary scheme, with the rest being forced out.
The heaviest losses are in the Army, with 995 personnel going, along with 55 in the RAF and 10 in the Royal Navy.
It takes the total number to have gone under the programme since it started in 2011 to more than 12,000.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: “The announcement of the final tranche of the redundancy scheme we introduced to re-balance our armed forces and address the black hole in the defence budget in 2010 allows greater certainty for armed forces personnel going forward.
“It is with great regret that we have had to make redundancies to reduce the size of the armed forces, but unfortunately they were unavoidable.”
Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary Vernon Coaker said: “Just a day after we found out the Army needs to recruit thousands more troops to meet its requirement, this government is sacking soldiers.
“The defence secretary said he would recruit 11,000 new reserves to make up for the 20,000 armed forces personnel he plans to cut.
“But since 2011, 12,000 military personnel have been made redundant while the number of reserves has actually fallen.
“Britain’s armed forces will be left with a dangerous capability gap unless the Defence Secretary gets a grip and sorts this mess out.”