Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has sufficient human resources of the necessary calibre and expertise to ensure that construction work at Sellafield is being effectively managed and supervised; whether that work is on course to meet all the necessary deadlines; and what progress has been made with that work.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is responsible for ensuring that it and its delivery partners (the Site Licence Companies) have the right skills and capability to deliver its mission. The Department monitors closely the work of the NDA – a specialist contracting authority - and its contractors, which manage and operate the sites on its behalf.

The current NDA team bring decades of technical and commercial experience to the oversight of these major contracts and the Department is assured that the NDA has the necessary resource and expertise to oversee work at Sellafield and its other sites.

In light of the decision, announced by the Secretary of State in January 2015, to change the ownership model for Sellafield, bringing the Sellafield Ltd Site Licence Company under the direct ownership of the NDA as a wholly owned subsidiary with effect from April 2016, the NDA is re-assessing its future resource requirements. The model change has prioritised accessing world class capabilities to all levels of the site.

Performance at Sellafield has been improving steadily since the NDA took ownership in 2005, prior to which there was little investment in the legacy infrastructure and no progress with decommissioning. Sellafield Ltd has on average met 86% of its milestones in recent years and is making good progress against its work plan for 2015/16.

The NDA publishes reports on its website on progress on priority programmes and projects. The latest version of the document can be viewed at:

http://www.nda.gov.uk/publication/programmes-and-major-projects-report-pilot-3/

An update is scheduled for later this Autumn.