RWMAC Annual Report 2001/2002

Annex 5: The response of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) to the "Managing the Nuclear Legacy" White Paper

1. Introduction

1.1 This document is the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee's (RWMAC's) response to the Managing the Nuclear Legacy White Paper, Cm 5552 ¹. The White Paper, published on 4 July 2002, set out the Government's proposals to establish a new Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) and invited comments.

1.2 RWMAC provided some initial thoughts on the LMA in its earlier response to the Government's Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation document ² which considered the process for formulation of policy for the long-term management of the UK's solid radioactive wastes. Where necessary, reference is made to these earlier comments in this response.

1.3 RWMAC welcomes the proposed introduction of the LMA. The Committee believes, however, that more detailed consideration needs to be given to a number of key areas of its work. These areas are discussed in the following sections of this response.

2. The need to move forward

2.1 In the Committee's view inadequate progress has been made to date in the decommissioning and clean-up of redundant nuclear facilities in the UK. There are various possible reasons for this.

2.2 State-owned nuclear operators, accountable for discharging liabilities, have also carried out commercial activities. Decommissioning and clean-up projects have often taken second place to these commercial activities. Deferral of expenditure on discharging liabilities, encouraged, in the case of the UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA's) work, by use of the Treasury's six per cent discounting rate, has also been attractive in the context of the Government's and the Authority's accounting practices. In RWMAC's view, the 2-3 per cent rate used by other parts of the nuclear industry in liabilities management investment decisions is a more appropriate means of determining the relative costs and safety benefits of competing decommissioning projects.

2.3 There have been, and remain, important gaps in national policy relating to the long-term management of radioactive wastes, including those produced by decommissioning programmes, and to the clean up of radioactively contaminated land (which involves issues of the delicensing of nuclear sites). The absence of clear guidance has probably detracted from the ability of regulators and operators to make decisions affecting the long term.

2.4 In the past, there has also been a policy of deferring waste treatment - e.g., intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) - on the basis of avoiding possible foreclosure of future management options. This policy has now changed. The Government's 1995 radioactive waste management policy statement (Cm 2919) ³, while now largely overtaken by events, qualified the presumption against early treatment in cases where safety benefits could be secured. More recently, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has confirmed the objective of securing passively safe storage of radioactive waste on nuclear sites ⁴.

2.5 RWMAC itself wishes the establishment of the LMA to achieve two basic objectives. The first is the introduction of effective drivers to push forward the decommissioning and clean-up of the UK's redundant civil nuclear facilities. The second is to place the associated nuclear waste into a passively safe storable form until policy on the facilities needed for its long-term management has been decided and implemented.

2.6 The remainder of this response includes the Committee's views on the measures that are necessary to achieve these two basic objectives, drawing on its perceptions of the reasons for lack of progress in the past. Many, but not all, of the requirements are associated with the organisation and powers of the LMA itself; some are dependent on the actions of others - mainly Government, regulators, and the nuclear industry.

3. General comments on the LMA proposals

3.1 RWMAC supports identification of guiding principles for the LMA's decommissioning and clean-up work as set out in chapter 1 of the White Paper. These are:

• a focus on getting the job done to high safety, security and environmental standards;
• best value for money consistent with safety, security and environmental performance;
• openness and transparency;
• competition - so as to make the best possible use of the best available skills.

The Committee supports the first three principles. It has some reservations concerning the fourth. The Committee's detailed comments on the delivery of each of these principles are as follows.

Getting the job done

3.2 In respect of the first two principles, covering the efficient and effective delivery of objectives, RMWAC believes that the legal and financial responsibilities for THORP and SMP (BNFL's plants atSellafield dealing,respectively, with the reprocessing of nuclear fuel and the manufacture of mixed-oxide fuel), for the Magnox nuclear power plants and for Drigg, that it is proposed the LMA will acquire, could represent a potential distraction to its liabilities management work. The first three facilities (all commercial rather than, at present, decommissioning undertakings) will create substantial amounts of waste, and will need careful handling by the LMA in practice. An associated issue is the apparently inconsistent basis on which some nuclear plants have been transferred to the LMA and others have not. The BNFL fuel fabrication plant at Springfields, which is not proposed to pass to the LMA, is a case in point since, within a short time, it will cease production and become a decommissioning site. RWMAC believes that the Government should provide an explanation, which needs to be transparent and consistent, for its proposals in this area.

3.3 In this context the LMA will be taking ownership of some facilities that in themselves have only limited liabilities management functions, but are dependent on conditioning plants that do. The White Paper acknowledges (paragraph 5.15) that there is the potential in the site contracts for conflict between delivery of clean-up programmes and "maximising returns for the taxpayer". In such cases, clean-up work will take priority. RWMAC welcomes this unambiguous statement of intent, but believes that its delivery will not be easy. The LMA will need to ensure that forward plans for the operation of the conditioning plants that fall into this category are made in a way that reflect the stated balance of priorities.

3.4 In the Committee's view, successful management of the potential conflict between long-term environmental protection objectives and short-term financial targets, i.e., in balancing liabilities discharge work and ongoing commercial activities, will represent a major challenge. Income from commercial activities could be ploughed back into decommissioning and clean-up work.

Openness and transparency

3.5 RWMAC believes that the principle of openness and transparency must be applied to all aspects of the LMA's work. It will be a public body charged with spending some tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to deal with a national problem, and must fully account for how it discharges that obligation.

3.6 This will apply to the way it achieves a balance between its liabilitiesmanagement and its residual commercial activities that were discussed in the previous paragraphs. The details of ongoing commercial work, its relationship to, and impact on, liabilities management activities must be openly declared, given that the latter represents the LMA's primary function.

3.7 The LMA must make every effort to engage local communities affected by its policies and plans. Representative local government has a highly important role toplay as the planning authority for development and as aconduit for the view of local people. Local support is likely to be a prerequisite for success.

3.8 In order to develop public confidence, the LMA will need to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including NGOs. Effective forms of communication and participation should be developed to maximise the potential value of engagement.

3.9 The LMA needs to serve the interests of small users as well as the nuclear industry, for example through the operation of Drigg, and dealing with historic spent sealed sources (see paragraphs 4.4 and 4.5), and it should therefore seek to develop effective working relationships with the small user sector. This might be achieved through a small users' forum or liaison group.

3.10 RWMAC therefore finds it encouraging that such approaches are embraced in the White Paper. In particular, the Committee commends paragraph 3.24 as a key statement of the approach of the LMA. The commitment to dialogue in paragraph 3.26 is also noted. RWMAC strongly supports the view, set out in paragraph 3.27, that the LMA must adopt a "collaborative rather than confrontational" approach.

Competition

3.11 It is in respect of the fourth guiding principle, that of competition, that RWMAC has significant concerns. Great care would always need to be taken in introducing competition to the kind of work to be undertaken by the LMA. The fact that the LMA will manage both commercial and non-commercial projects (the latter being its liabilities management duties) only emphasises this need.

3.12 RWMAC's reservations are based on several factors. First, there is an inherent conflict, that needs to be well managed, between economic and environmental objectives. Second, the limitations of the nuclear skills pool (see section 11) may limit the scope for competition. Third, the past lessons of competition will need to be carefully examined. Peer review could be employed to help the LMA do so - experience of the contracting-out and privatisation of nuclear activities has been both successful and unsuccessful. Fourth, there is the risk of diversification going too far with loss of cohesion and consistency in the way that problems are tackled. This could potentially constitute a major difficulty for the LMA. Last, the Committee has serious concerns that the Government has not yet considered in sufficient detail the implications for safety of engaging contractors to carry out day-to-day decommissioning and clean-up work. Prima facie, the proposals suggest that the LMA's overall accountability for managing liabilities would become separated from the safety responsibilities of the site licensee. This important issue is discussed further in section 6 of this response.

4. MoD and other wastes

4.1 RWMAC is disappointed about aspects of the White Paper discussion of publicly-owned liabilities that are proposed to be excluded from the LMA's remit. These exclusions cover the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and its civilian contractors and also publicly owned spent radioactive sealed sources.

Defence wastes

4.2 Paragraph 1.9 of the White Paper refers to the liabilities management arrangements arising from MoD's nuclear programmes. Operation of these programmes is mostly subject to contractual agreements with private sector companies which, in some cases, own the sites. Decommissioning and clean-up, in some cases well advanced, is the responsibility of the private sector owner or contractor.

4.3 Virtually all the wastes arising both from ongoing operations and decommissioning are owned by MoD. Where possible (for example, Drigg) defence wastes are disposed of. Other defence wastes, like civil wastes, have to be stored, and there is also commonality, both in practice and, potentially, in the use of conditioning plant. Since the LMA will have to undertake waste management functions, issues of optimisation of resources and sharing of expertise suggest that the LMAwill need, from the outset, to gain a good understanding of MoD radioactive waste management practices.

Spent sealed sources/small user waste

4.4 RWMAC believes strongly that the LMA should have been given a specific remit to deal with historic spent radioactive sealed sources, which are a problematic element of the range of wastes produced by the non-nuclear sector (known as "small users"). This applies in particular to sources owned by public bodies (e.g., hospitals and education establishments).

4.5 RWMAC would not wish to see wrangling between Government departments about "who pays for what" causing the unique opportunity provided by the creation of the LMA to deal with this problem to be lost. In practice, there is only one public purse and the cost of dealing with publicly owned spent sealed sources will have to be met, in one way or another, from it.

4.6 Radioactive sources represent less than one per cent of the total radioactive waste in the UK. It would, by one means or another, also be in the public interest to deal with privately-owned historic radioactive sources in the industrial sector. RWMAC has welcomed a recent Scottish Executive initiative dealing with some public sector sources which suggests that the cost of a moratorium would not be unduly high and could also achieve significant economies of scale.

5. Treatment of materials not currently regarded as wastes

5.1 In the comments made in respect of the LMA in its Managing Radioactive Waste Safely response, RWMAC said:

"The LMA needs to be given a comprehensive and clear statement of its remit, including definition of the wastes for which it is to be responsible, and extending to materials which could become wastes in future".

Chapter 3 of the White Paper does not address these issues and the Committee stands by its view that the Government will need to ensure, in due course, that detailed guidance is provided to the LMA.

5.2 For conventional wastes - high level wastes (HLW), intermediate level waste (ILW) and low level waste (LLW) - important questions are how the wastes from ongoing commercial operations are to be handled, what the LMA's responsibilities in respect of them are and on what basis these will be delivered (see section 3).

5.3 The UK Government owns part of the UK's stock of plutonium, uranium and spent fuel, some of which, as indicated in the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation document, might be regarded as wastes in future. Clarification is needed on the LMA's current legal and financial responsibilities for these materials, and how they might change, if at all, in the event that some of the stocks were declared as wastes. A prerequisite to resolving this issue is a clear view on the Government's objectives for management of these materials and the kind of custodianship envisaged that will best achieve them.

5.4 The importance of these questions is made clear by the Government's announcement of 29 July 2002 on the progress of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely initiative, which included the statement:

"The waste from our existing nuclear facilities will arise over the next century or so. So we intend, in our assessment of waste management options, to include not only materials currently classified as waste but also to consider the consequences of providing for other materials which may be have to be managed as waste during that period, such as some separated plutonium, and uranium, as well as certain quantities of spent nuclear fuel. The future management options for the UK's civil plutonium include its possible use as a fuel. However, up to 5 per cent of this stock may be so contaminated that, even though it may also be technically possible to treat and use this amount for fuel, it might prove uneconomic to do so. The Government is currently undertaking a study of the possible options for the future management of UK-owned civil stock and will want to consider the results of that exercise before reaching its own conclusions on this issue. More generally, the Government urges the other owners of these materials, on a voluntary basis, to put in hand procedures now which would allow them to identify those materials which may become not economically reusable".

6. The use of contractors and ensuring safety

6.1 Under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (NIA65), responsibility for ensuring the safety of sites where nuclear operations take place is vested in a site licensee under the terms of the site license. The White Paper envisages that the LMA will own the sites (together with their associated liabilities) but will not manage them directly. This will be contracted to other bodies which will also hold the site licenses. The White Paper explains that this will enable the LMA to concentrate on a strategic role, rather than one of day-to-day implementation. Delivery of clean-up programmes will be the responsibility of site licensees under incentivised arrangements.

6.2 RWMAC believes that, potentially, this structure could give rise to serious difficulties in adequately ensuring safety.

6.3 First, there is the general conceptual problem of who is accountable. Under the White Paper proposals, the LMA directs site decommissioning and clean-up work and is the beneficiary from it (in terms of the discharge of liabilities). Normally, accountability for adhering to the terms of the license, including bearing the penalty for breaches, would go along with these responsibilities and benefits. The proposals appear, however, to place the key legal accountabilities with the contractors. RWMAC believes that the Government needs to be sure that these arrangements are consistent with the way in which the provisions of NIA65 are meant to apply - in particular, is it sure that accountability for adherence to the site license conditions is properly and unambiguously fixed?

6.4 Second, there is the question of whether safety can, in principle, be incentivised. Safety is an absolute which cannot be delivered in part. Bonus payments based partly on achievement of safety targets can risk false reporting of incidents and accidents and driving safety issues underground. The need is for careful setting of targets linked to payment levels that obviate these risks, while encouraging contractors to "go the extra mile" to ensure a high degree of safety.

6.5 Very great care on setting contractual conditions will, therefore, be needed if the potential benefits are to be realised. This is an area about which RWMAC does have serious concerns, and one to which it believes the Government, in conjunction, in particular, with the HSE, needs to give considerable thought.

6.6 Coupled with this, the formal independence of the LMA from its potential contractors will need to be guaranteed through its constitution and funding arrangements. Given that contractors will be drawn from the nuclear industry, and that the LMA Board is likely to include members with industry experience, it is vital that its independence can be seen to be assured. In particular, a clear demonstration that the management and Board of the LMA are free of conflicts of interest is vitally important if the public is to have confidence in the LMA's work.

7. The LMA's relationship with government and regulatory bodies

7.1 The creation of the LMA, together with the residual newly-defined BNFL and UKAEA, introduces new bodies into a radioactive waste management arena where there are many existing players and a complex matrix of relationships already exists. This involves, among others, the regulators (the HSE and the environment agencies), the new body overseeing the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely policy formulation process and Nirex (or any successor body). The relationship of the LMA to the Devolved Administrations, as well as to Whitehall (given that radioactive waste management is a devolved responsibility), will need to be articulated so that its practices are compatible with policy formulated by these governmental bodies.

7.2 It is important that the nature of the relationship between both the LMA and its contractors and these various organisations, and the respective responsibilities and accountabilities that flow from it, are clearly defined. The White Paper made some opening observations, although there is clearly much that remains to be done to ensure clarity and to remove the possibility of misunderstanding and problems.

7.3 Particular care will also need to be taken to engage local planning authorities and also bodies such as Nirex (or its successor), which effectively sets waste conditioning and packaging requirements for ILW, in a positive way and at an early stage.

7.4 The activities of both the LMA and its contractors will need to be subject to regulation by the environment agencies and the HSE. As RWMAC has noted ⁵, problems can arise as a result of different regulatory body priorities and the principles applied to achieve them. While there are ongoing initiatives to overcome such problems, the LMA and its contractors will need to gain a good understanding of the aims of the regulators, and the regulatory principles and practices applied, if it is to be able to plan its work programmes effectively. It must also develop measures and methodologies, agreed with the regulators, that will allow it to compare programme options and measure progress on the programmes selected. It will be necessary for the LMA to develop internal mechanisms to ensure that its contractors understand, and adopt, its general work practices and standards (see paragraph 11.4).

7.5 RWMAC believes that emphasis must be given to early dialogue between the LMA and all those who have a legitimate interest in its activities in order to facilitate the development of a "common purpose" approach. This implies the need for preparation by the LMA of strategic assessments and plans, identifying all the various hurdles that need to be overcome, in carrying forward its decommissioning and clean-up projects.

8. The LMA and Government policy

The Managing Radioactive Waste Safely process

8.1 Alongside its responsibility for decommissioning and clean-up, the LMA's role in the light of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely process for deciding long-term policy for managing solid radioactive waste needs to be properly defined and understood.

8.2 This role, in RWMAC's view, is:

• to ensure in accordance with guidance from Government and the regulators, the safe interim management of legacy and operational wastes until such time as long-term solutions are in place;
• to contribute, as a stakeholder to discussions on the formulation of an agreed policy on these long-term waste management solutions as part of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely initiative.

8.3 From this it will be clear that RWMAC sees the LMA as essentially an implementing body, one dealing with interim, not permanent, management of wastes. As such it should contribute to, but not formulate, policy on long-term management solutions. As a manager of radioactive waste, the LMA will need to keep closely in mind the accountabilities and responsibilities that attach to all its management functions, for example, protection of the workforce, the public and the environment from the hazards associated with radiation, and the need to adhere to the central principles of best practicable means and as low as reasonably achievable.

The need for an interim policy statement

8.4 In order for both the LMA and other waste managers to have a template against which to discharge their responsibilities and functions, as identified above, the Government must further develop its policy on interim radioactive waste management. The need to provide a clear statement of policy for the period before a long-term management solution is selected and implemented was advocated in RWMAC's response to the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation ². In part, this drew on the detailed findings of another recent RWMAC report on the conditioning, packaging and storage of ILW ⁶. To fulfil the role identified above, it follows that the LMA must be provided with a clear statement of interim policy to which Government expects it to work. RWMAC stated its view on this in its response to Managing Radioactive Waste Safely.

8.5 The Committee's view remains unchanged. A published statement on the interim management of wastes, setting the framework for the LMA's work, should include:

• the decommissioning policy towards which the LMA's work should be aiming;
• the standards and objectives to be applied to the conditioning, packaging and storage of all solid wastes;
• the Government's policy for treating waste for passively safe storage (as advocated by the HSE and which, subject to appropriate conditions, RWMAC supports);
• an indication of the Government's expectation of prudent lifetime objectives for the packaging and interim storage of waste;
• the need to have confidence in compatibility of conditioning processes with the ultimate long-term management arrangements for the waste (which, for example, in the case of ILW is currently secured through the Nirex Letters of Comfort system);
• coupled with this, any restrictions to be placed on interim treatment of waste prior to final conditioning (e.g., to avoid the need for reworking);
• the need for forward planning on how to deal with any spent fuel, plutonium and uranium including that may eventually come to be declared as wastes. Policy for the interim management of spent fuel not committed to reprocessing, and for the interim management of plutonium and uranium, needs to be clear;
• the principles underpinning, and methodology for the justification of, new processes involving the creation of solid radioactive waste and radioactive discharges;
• Government policy for control of radioactive discharges (the UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020 has now been published ⁷, although further statutory guidance to the environment agencies is expected to follow);
• standards to be applied to nuclear site remediation and clean-up of radioactively contaminated land (which also need to be finalised), and a clear interpretation of the "no danger" criterion for delicensing.

9. Provision of disposal and other long-term management facilities.

9.1 The forward timescale for the LMA's clean-up activities has not been declared. In practice, partly because complete remediation of a site raises significant problems of practicability, this is difficult to do. For example, if a "safestore" decommissioning approach is in due course, adopted, the timescale could extend for more than a hundred years. Neither is the end point of the LMA's waste management activities on any particular site clear. Once the policy for the long-term management of radioactive waste has been clarified, what will be the role of the LMA in proceeding from the scenario of waste in passive storage to the long-term management option selected?

9.2 At first sight, this may seem a somewhat hypothetical issue, but consideration of the existing Dounreay Site Restoration Plan for example, suggests that issues of end points and the practicalities of site management over long periods will need to be considered. This must be suitably incorporated into the LMA's work.

9.3 A specific issue can be seen to arise in respect of the LLW disposal facilities. For example, the White Paper clearly requires the LMA to continue to operate the Drigg LLW disposal facility as a national asset. It also appears to have the role of evaluating, over the fairly short-term, the possibilities for, and presumably securing, a replacement facility for the (now full) LLW disposal pits at the Dounreay site. By contrast, little is said about the mechanism of securing replacement provision for Drigg.

9.4 Shallow burial is a proven, and internationally accepted, disposal route for LLW. Careful consideration could usefully be given to what role, if any, the LMA should have in developing LLW disposal facilities outside those that it will already own (i.e., the current disposal site at Drigg) since, at present, it is unclear who will have this responsibility. Examination of the issue should be conducted under similar principles to those of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely initiative; it is important that this role should not fall to the LMA by default.

9.5 It is imperative that there is not a repetition at UK level of the experience at the Dounreay LLW disposal pits, where the problem of rapidly diminishing capacity was not identified and declared in good time for replacement plans to be put underway. The lead-time for the planning and construction of any new LLW disposal facility is likely to be long.

9.6 In may be that the provider of long-term management facilities for other wastes cannot, realistically, be determined until the outcome of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely policy formulation process is known. However, the fact that this need applies equally to LLW, and the kinds of facility that the LMA will be responsible for operating, needs to be borne in mind.

10. Financial organisation and provisioning

Organisation

10.1 As section 2 of this response made clear, a prime duty of the LMA will be to secure value for money and cost effectiveness in the work it carries out. Careful consideration is needed of the best model for achieving this. In making liabilities management investment decisions, the relationship between the LMA's senior management structure and its site-based staff will be important. The experience of the Liabilities Management Divisions at Nuclear Electric and Magnox could provide lessons here.

Provisioning options

10.2 The Government invites views on two options for LMA funding: a segregated fund and a statutory segregated account.

10.3 In RWMAC's view, the option that is selected must serve a number of purposes, including:

• creating and maintaining a viable competitive market in liabilities management services;
• upholding public confidence in the way the work is carried out;
• giving the LMA greater flexibility to implement optimal work programmes.

In other words, the three key objectives set out in paragraph 5.6 of the UKAEA Quinquennial Review of November 2001 ⁸.

10.4 The White Paper suggests that a segregated fund would offer few advantages over a statutory segregated account, constitute an exception to normal Government accounting rules, and be more complex to operate.

10.5 RWMAC believes that a segregated fund would be likely to instil more public confidence than a segregated account. Confidence is in turn, however, wholly dependent on the efficacy of the arrangements and this is the main criterion against which proposals need to be assessed, since neither option can be resistant to problems in this area.

10.6 Thus, the level of funding needs to be adequate to meet programme spend and to provide confidence of investment to underpin legacy management work, including recruitment, training, and research and development. The provisioning arrangement also needs to enable the LMA to make changes in the phasing of expenditure in an effective and efficient manner. Liabilities management is never a precise process, and subjecting it to a rigid set of year-by-year accounting rules is likely to jeopardise programme delivery.

10.7 Although RWMAC has traditionally favoured the segregated fund approach, it believes that the two options need to be assessed with all these objectives in mind. It might also be helpful to consider which option would best deliver identifiable key attributes of the provisioning arrangements. Foremost among these, RWMAC believes, is continuity of funding, i.e., the assurance that expenditure can be planned over a period consistent with the LMA's strategic responsibilities. The arrangements could, for example, be designed to guarantee the build-up of funds sufficient to support a 10-year work programme. In either case (and, prima facie, it appears more pertinent to a segregated account), the Government should not, in RWMAC's view, employ the unnecessarily high 6 per cent discounting rate (see paragraph 2.2).

10.8 Lastly, the White Paper emphasises that the LMA is expected to firm up liability estimates as one of its first tasks. RWMAC strongly supports this. It is clear that, currently, there are significant uncertainties in this area. The White Paper suggests that overcoming this problem is simply a matter of time and resources. But much of the uncertainty arises form a lack of clarity about the condition of facilities and the volumes of waste that will have to be dealt with. This is, in turn, a consequence of the policy gaps identified earlier in this response (see section 8). Resolution of these difficulties is a prerequisite of the LMA being able to carry through liabilities estimation work successfully.

11. Nuclear expertise within the LMA

11.1 Much of the LMA's work will be delivered by contractors. This means that it must be able to act as an "intelligent customer" (i.e., the LMA should possess sufficient expertise of its own to understand the requirements of the services it is procuring and to be able to assess the way they are delivered). This ability would be critical if, as the White Paper suggests might come to pass, the LMA "would be able to assume ownership of any licensee company if there was a need for it to do so".

11.2 In RWMAC's view, the statement on taking over ownership of the site licensee implies that the LMA should have the ability to run a nuclear site. RWMAC is not convinced that this requirement has been fully thought through in the White Paper proposals. There will need to be a balance between using in-house and "bought in" expertise should such a need arise. But how the latter would be utilised, given the need to ensure adequate safety provision at all times (see section 6), is unclear.

11.3 There will be a need, in all eventualities, for the LMA to be able to demonstrate, particularly to the regulators, that it can control, in an effective manner, the contractors it employs.

11.4 In this context, RWMAC does not believe that it will be enough for the LMA to say that its contractors and licensees are regulated by national bodies. It must have its own internal standards and quality assurance mechanisms to ensure adequate and consistent delivery of its objectives across all of the 17 legacy sites for which it will be responsible. This will be a different role from that which the regulatory bodies themselves will exercise. Until the track record of consulting and contracting companies has been established, LMA staff will need to satisfy themselves as to the experience and competence of such companies' personnel.

11.5 RWMAC's belief is that there may prove to be a shortfall in the large number of scientists and engineers, and in the science and engineering-related management personnel who will be needed by the potentially numerous and competing consulting and contracting companies engaged in site remediation and waste storage/disposal work. RWMAC would therefore like to see an early start to the Nuclear and Radiological Skills Initiative discussed in chapter 3 of the White Paper. It believes that the problems of ensuring the availability of suitably qualified personnel, other than from a process of denuding existing nuclear companies of their expertise, should be seen as an early concern of the LMA.

12. The future of the UKAEA Constabulary

12.1 It is unclear to RWMAC, what the proposals for the UKAEA Constabulary set out in chapter 8 of the White Paper actually imply, or whether they will be adequate to meet the new levels of terrorist threat perceived following the events of 11 September 2001.

12.2 In fact, what appears to be intended from the wording of the White Paper is little change to the current situation, with the duties of new constabulary still limited to only a proportion of the LMA assets, based only on considerations of history and previous ownership, rather than risk - in terms of materials stored or accident consequence.

12.3 RWMAC believes that the policing role should be extended to all licensed sites, or to sites where the level of materials stored, or accident consequence, trigger the need for such specialist attention. This would probably extend the policing role to MoD sites such as AWE Aldermaston, as well as to the operational nuclear sites currently owned by BNFL and by British Energy.

12.4 The term UKAEA Constabulary does not itself convey the impression of a modern security force set up to counter possible terrorist activity. RWMAC therefore recommends that consideration be given to renaming the proposed new organisation.

References

¹ Managing the Nuclear Legacy, a strategy for action (Cm 5552), Department of Trade and Industry, July 2002.

² Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: Proposals for Developing a Policy for Managing Solid Radioactive Waste in the UK, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs et al, September 2001.

³ Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy: Final Conclusions (Cm 2919), Her Majesty's Stationery Office, July 1995.

⁴ Health and Safety Executive, Nuclear Safety Directorate, Guidance for Inspectors on the Management of Radioactive Materials and Radioactive Waste on Nuclear Licensed Sites, March 2001.

⁵ The Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee and the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee, Review of the Regulation of Nuclear Safety and the Management of Radioactive Materials and Radioactive Waste within the UK - Structures and Principles of the Regulation of Civil Nuclear Licensed Sites (the Joint Regulatory Review), to be published.

⁶ Report of a Joint Study by the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee and the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee: Current Arrangements and Requirements for the Conditioning, Packaging and Storage of Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, June 2002.

⁷ UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, July 2002.

⁸ Second Report of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Quinquennial Review, Department of Trade and Industry, November 2001.