The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

 

'During its start-up phase, NDA achieved a significant amount including increasing its knowledge of the liabilities, delivering competitions, restructuring the industry, developing Lifetime Plans, establishing the NDA organisation and publishing its first Strategy. Moving forward, it is necessary for the NDA to have a good strategy in place, turn that into plans and then put these plans into action' – Tony Fountain, NDA Chief Executive

The development of strategy is an ongoing process that involves NDA's subject matter experts and their regular engagement with numerous stakeholders from across the industry, such as Regulators and Site Licence Companies (SLCs).

The Energy Act 2004 requires NDA to review and publish its strategy every five years. The NDA published its first strategy in 2006 and this is now being reviewed and revised for publication in April 2011.

The NDA's strategy considers how the sites will be restored for return to societal use, how spent fuels and nuclear materials will be managed, how current and future waste products will be managed and ultimately disposed of and how the NDA will use its assets to maximise income to enable the delivery of its wider mission.

Richard Arnott, NDA's Programme Manager, said: "The development of strategy relies on many factors, such as safety, technical and financial underpinning, the views of our stakeholders and interactions with policy. Our strategic decisions are based on sound business case principles that aim to achieve efficiency, value for money and the progressive delivery of our mission. Our next strategy aims to reflect the maturity of our development work in each area of the NDA's remit at the time of publication."

The NDA will be conducting a public consultation commencing in September 2010 for a 12-week period. Director of Strategy and Technology, Adrian Simper, said: "The views of our stakeholders are important to us, so the NDA is currently developing a plan to engage its stakeholders through a variety of means and to communicate its strategy both before and during the public consultation. We have events planned with our statutory consultees and aim to visit our sites and their local communities during September and October 2010."

In addition, the NDA is holding two National Stakeholder Group events during 2010. The March event is timed to provide stakeholders with an early opportunity to influence the proposed strategy, and in September the NSG will provide the platform to launch the public consultation.

The NDA is also preparing a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to support its revised strategy, and this too will undergo the 12-week public consultation.

The NDA Strategy will be approved by the Secretary of State and Scottish ministers prior to publication in April 2011.