Third of senior Army officers face axe as top general vows to oust 'penpushers and yes men'

General Sir Nicholas Carter is also looking to allow officers to take career breaks to have and raise children

General Sir Nicholas Carter, who heads the Army, plans to make the top brass more effective and professional as part of the streamlining. (GETTY IMAGES)

Up to a third of senior officers will be cut as part of cutbacks of the Army and reform of how the highest ranks are organised.

General Sir Nicholas Carter, who heads the Army, plans to make the top brass more effective and professional as part of the streamlining.

He want to oust the “penpushers and yes men” he believes, according to The Times, take up too many senior posts.

Among the changes he wants to make is to ensure officers are loyal first and foremost to the Army as a whole rather than, as has been traditional for many years, to their regiments.

He is also looking to allow officers to take career breaks to have and raise children without it damaging promotion prospects.

Many of the planned changes have, it was reported, been proposed amid concerns the Army’s efficiency has been hampered by flawed leadership in which bureaucratic and political compliance is valued over military sense.

Former Special Air Service commander Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Williams said: “One of the reasons that our senior military leaders were so poor in Basra, Helmand and London was that many of them had got promoted to those leadership roles based upon their ability to do good staff work, or to be adept at playing compromise politics in the MoD as opposed to demonstrating the ability to lead men, machines and organisations in tough times.”