Questioning the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s decision last fall to extend for five years URS-led Nuclear Management Partners’ contract to clean up the Sellafield site, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee released a report today demanding additional improvements. “The Authority must monitor progress and terminate the contract if NMP’s performance does not improve quickly. We want the National Audit Office to review the Authority’s approach and report back to us on performance at Sellafield one year into the extended contract,” PAC Chair Margaret Hodge said in a statement, adding, “We are not confident that taxpayers’ interests are being protected in the contractual relationships between the private companies involved in managing and operating the Sellafield site.”
The report included several recommendations for the NDA. In addition to calls for the NDA and NAO to review site progress, the recommendations include examining how to transfer more risk to the contractor, and public reporting on “safeguards in place to protect taxpayers’ interests.” The PAC has also been critical of the NDA’s failure to immediately disclose last year the results of a private audit on Sellafield commissioned last year. Today’s report recommends the NDA “revisit its approach to disclosing information to ensure that it does not use grounds such as commercial confidentiality inappropriately to withhold information on performance.”
In response to the report, NDA CEO John Clarke said in a statement, “The NDA welcomes the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into our vitally important mission to decommission Sellafield. We have made good progress towards implementing the recommendations laid down by the PAC following its original report into Sellafield last year and will now focus on achieving the aims of the six recommendations set out in this latest report.” NMP, for its part, said it was reviewing the recommendations together with the NDA and Sellafield, Ltd.
