See also
NDA Strategy Document
We published our revised Strategy in March 2011.
NDA Strategy - Effective from April 2011 (full colour version) (5Mb)
For more information see Our Strategy
Find more documents in our comprehensive Document Library.
Site Safety and Environmental Performance
Find out more about NDA Sites' Performance, visit our Site Safety and Environmental Performance section.
Our Approach
Our Planning and Reporting
Our revised Strategy was approved by Government in 2011.
NDA Strategy (Effective from April 2011) (2.76mb)
Our business plans, which are subject to consultation, are based on this approved Strategy. Our progress against our business plans is reported in our Annual Report and Accounts.
Business Plan 2011-2014 (4mb)
Annual Report and Accounts 2009/10 (2mb)
Our Guiding Principles
Our work is complex and challenging; we manage the risks inherent in the programme by following our five guiding principles:
- completing the work to the highest environmental, security and safety standards;
- achieving best value for money consistent with those standards;
- operating with openness and transparency; and
- developing competitive markets for decommissioning and clean-up contracts, driving innovation and ensuring the best possible use of available skills.
How We Work
Stakeholder Engagement and Value Framework
We are committed to an open and transparent relationship with our stakeholders. We strive to set the highest standards in openness and transparency in order to inspire public confidence. We welcome and encourage comments from stakeholders on the activities, performance and achievements of both ourselves and our contractors.
We are required to describe to stakeholders the rationale behind how we make major decisions. We are working with stakeholders to develop a national process, called the Value Framework, which is closely integrated with strategy development and business planning to ensure that stakeholders are engaged at critical points in decision making.
The Value Framework will weigh our priority of hazard and risk reduction against other impacts, including safety and environmental protection, socio-economic effects and value for money.
We manage the differing demands of our sites so that the available skills and resources are used to best effect. We ensure our contractors adopt best practice and apply relevant lessons across the country, often according to best practice used by organisations internationally and in other sectors.
Lifetime Plans and Hazard Baseline
Individual sites develop Lifetime Plans (LTPs) that set out the short, medium and long-term priorities for the decommissioning and clean-up of each site. We consolidate the individual site lifetime plans in to one national lifetime plan for the UK. This consolidated lifetime plan shapes our national strategy for tackling the nuclear legacy.
In parallel to the production of the Lifetime Plans, we are running a Hazard Baseline Project to assess the amount of hazard posed by radioactive waste on our sites as of 1 April 2007. The aims are to:
- Provide a schedule of work for reducing the concern posed by the hazards on the site, including consideration of how:
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- the level of concern reduces with time; and
- the rate at which the waste material is process, packaged and disposed of.
- Identify opportunities for:
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- speeding up the process for reducing hazard and level of concern; or
- reducing the overall lifecycle costs.
Commercial Operations
Our commercial activities comprise:
- electricity generation at Oldbury and Wylfa power stations and Maentwrog hydro-electric power station;
- fuel manufacture at Springfields for British Energy's Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs);
- reprocessing of oxide fuel;
- conversion of uranium hexaflouride;
- Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) manufacture;
- transportation of nuclear fuel and radioactive materials; and
- rental/sale of land and other property.
Investing in Skills, Research and Development and Supply Chain Development
Nuclear decommissioning and clean-up is a relatively new industry globally. Developing a workforce with the right skills is a major challenge. The UK nuclear industry employs many thousands of specialists, but the experience gained in this sector is not always directly applicable to decommissioning. Overcoming this skills gap is one of our strategic priorities.
There are other industries, such as oil and gas, with experience of handling hazardous materials and operating in demanding conditions. We aim to bring in expertise from these sectors, as well as develop new talent through postgraduate and apprenticeship training.
On 5 December 2002, the Department for Trade and Industry (now Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) published a report on nuclear skills carried out by the Nuclear Skills Group under Professor John Chesshire. The Report estimated that the industry may need to recruit up to 30,000 people in the next decade to account for retirement and growth in clean-up work. These will need to be recruited primarily from existing fields in the physical sciences and engineering sectors.
In addition, we are working with the supply chain to create a sustainable and competitive supply chain, capable of winning and delivering successful contracts across our portfolio of sites.
