78. In the course of our visit to Sellafield in June 1999, we held a private meeting with the Chief Inspector of the HSE's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and others, and representatives of the Environment Agency. The Chief Inspector told us of HSE's plans for a Team Inspection into BNFL's arrangements for the control and supervision of operations at Sellafield, in the light of an apparent increase in the number of incidents at Sellafield in the first half of 1999 and concern at reductions in the workforce.[127] The Inspection took place in September 1999. The Report was published on 18 February 2000.

It concluded that Sellafield lacked a high quality safety management system; had insufficient resources to implement the existing safety management system; lacked an effective independent inspection, audit and review system; and had an excessively complex management structure. The Report called for improvements in the underlying safety culture and a more consistent application of standards across the whole site. It made 28 specific recommendations and called for a response within 2 months. On 18 April 2000 BNFL published its Response to the HSE Team Inspection Report in a document entitled Going Forward Safely. It responded to each Recommendation and provided a timetable for implementation. Several have already been implemented. Many will be complete by the end of 2000. The last recommendation to be fully implemented — the introduction of a single system for controlling and recording safety related training — is to be completed by the end of October 2002.

79. On 3 February 2000, in advance of publication of the HSE Report referred to above, the Minister for Energy asked the new Chairman and Chief Executive to conduct a rapid review of management arrangements and report back to her on changes made.[128] On 18 April BNFL announced a number of changes in the company's management.[129]

• The six current non-executive Directors will be replaced; four of them are to retire in August 2000, one at the end of 2000 and one at the end of 2001. The Chairman is seeking replacements who "will give to BNFL a good mix of commercial and international public company experience" and "safety and regulatory experience".
• New Finance and Human Resources Directors are to be appointed.
• The four existing Business Groups have been slightly restructured, with each Group reporting to a General Manager. Magnox generation is to be a separate Business Group, taking in Calder Hall: Magnox reprocessing is added to the "Spent Fuel Management" Group: and a new General Manager is sought for the "Nuclear decommissioning and Clean-Up" Group which will "provide the expertise for BNFL sites, including Sellafield."
• A Director of Operations, Sellafield has been appointed to be "line accountable for all safety, environmental and operational issues across the site", reporting to the General Manager, Spent Fuel Management. This post apparently replaces that of "Head of Sellafield" referred to in the 1998-99 Annual Report as held by an Executive Director, Grahame Smith.
• The current "Director of Safety" post is to be replaced by a new post of "Executive Director of Health, Safety and Environment", with "direct access to the Board" and explicitly tasked with challenging rather than supporting the Group's businesses. In May 2000 the Board will be asked to agree to an Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S) Board Committee to provide the Board with independent advice on EH&S matters.[130] The Executive Director is to be supported by a new Safety Audit team, including 10 "independent" EH&S inspectors.[131]
• Six "site independent compliance advisers", reporting to the Director of Operations, will be recruited.[132]
• Overall, BNFL state that more than 70 new jobs have been identified, and that the review of manning levels could result in more being created.[133]

80. We welcome BNFL's response to the HSE Reports and to Ministerial desire for a management review, although the extent of change in management arrangements is rather less than appears. The new Board of BNFL will be expected to achieve much in a short time. It must ensure not only that the necessary changes are driven through, but also that they are seen to be driven through. BNFL proposes publication of "annual statements summarising progress."[134] We recommend that the regular progress reports to "key stakeholders" be made available to the Committee, as are the comparable reports from UKAEA on Dounreay, so that Parliament can also be assured that progress is indeed being made.

128  Ev, p 112 Back

129  Ibid Back

130  Going Forward Safely, p 25, 3.4 Back

131  Ibid, p 26, 4.4 Back

132  Ibid, 4.5 Back

133  BNFL/1551/00, 18 April 2000 Back

134  Going Forward Safely, p 17, para 90 Back