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Just incase there is anyone else like Fincastle who believes what they read in the papers, the actual numbers of Civil servants breaks down more or less like this:
The total number of 85,370 civilians actually includes:
2,300 RFA staff who crew ships refuelling and reprovisioning the navy (in most other countries this role would be more likely to be performed by the military);
9,800 locally-employed civilians who play vital roles as interpreters, guides etc, often in active theatres of war;
11,000 industrial grades including warehouse staff, drivers and some messenger staff.
9,700 employed by trading funds - the Army Base Repair Organisation (ABRO) and DARA are vital to the maintenance of the armed forces' equipment and again in some countries would be staffed by the military.
1,060 teachers and others involved in Service Childrens Education.
7,450 who make up the MDP, MGS, and MPGS.
Various Defence Intelligence and Rocket scientist types, roughly another 4,000.
If you then do the sums of what’s left you discover that of those 41,000 'admin' type civil servants, nearly 30,000 of them are in clerical grades, doing admin jobs that would otherwise be done by forces personnel for a lot more money and overheads.
The ratio of civilian to military is about 1 civil servant to every 3.6 servicemen/women. The Tpapers compare them unfavourably to our NATO colleagues, but France has a ratio of 1 to 3 and the United States have a 1 to 1.8 ration.