The government needs to take back control of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), following a searing report by
MPs highlighting the costly failures in the nuclear clean-up
contract.
Unite, the country’s largest union, made the call following the
Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report that accused the NDA of
failing in the procurement and management of the contract to
decommission two nuclear research sites and 10 Magnox sites.
The High Court ruled in 2016 that the NDA
had failed to treat all bidders the same when it awarded the 2014
contract to clean up the Magnox reactors to Cavendish Fluor
Partnership (CFP). The successful High Court challenge came from
failed bidder EnergySolutions.
Unite acting national officer for energy Peter McIntosh
said: “Unite is calling for ministers
to put the NDA out of its misery and take back control centrally
to ensure the taxpayer and the workforce do not have to pay the
heavy price for the government and the NDA's past
failings.
“The NDA’s reputation for competence and prudence
with the taxpayers’ cash is in shreds. The government does not
get away scot free as it allowed the bosses at the NDA to award
the contract in the first place and failed subsequently to
exercise sufficient oversight.
“However, on balance, the government is better placed
to chart a strategic way forward when CFP ends its involvement in
the contract in August 2019 and to provide the leadership
necessary over the clean-up programme as the NDA lacks
credibility.
“The NDA status as a
non-departmental public body of the Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy has come to the end of the
road.
“This financial debacle has cost the hard-pressed
taxpayer up to £122 million and such financial mismanagement
can’t ever be repeated.
"We look forward with great interest to the final
recommendations of the Magnox inquiry when it is completed later
this year. We expect a vigorous and trenchant report into what
went so wrong over the awarding of this contract and to future
arrangements."
