Major concerns have been raised over the costs and delays of decommissioning the Sellafield nuclear complex in West Cumbria.
It is estimated it will cost £136 billion and take 100 years to clean up the site – but a committee of MPs warned the retrieval of waste was not happening quickly enough.
The Public Accounts Committee scrutinised the operation at Sellafield earlier this year and quizzed nuclear bosses, following a National Audit Office report that found while management of major projects had begun to improve, four projects underway when the office last reported in 2018 were significantly over budget and behind schedule.
The committee published its 32-page report today and said the cost of decommissioning would continue to rise even further if work carried on being delayed.
It said it was sceptical over recent signs of improvement – as they could represent ‘another false dawn’.
The report said:
- ‘The most hazardous building in the UK’ – Magnox Swarf Storage Silo is slowly leaking radioactive water into the ground, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every three years
- £127 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on a now paused laboratory project which was ‘managed very poorly’
- The committee has received a number of letters from whistleblowers making concerning allegations
- Over £377,000 was paid out in 2023-24 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to settle employment-related claims
- Sellafield Ltd signed 16 non-disclosure agreements in the last three years.
- Sellafield Ltd has missed most of its annual operational targets
- Sellafield Ltd ‘continues to repeat old mistakes’ despite some improvements
- The Government is not doing enough to ensure there is long-term value for money from the site
Sellafield Ltd directly employs 11,500 people and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
The authority is responsible for operating and cleaning up 17 nuclear sites, and Sellafield is the largest. In 2023-2024 it spent £2.7 billion there – around two thirds of its total spending.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, committee chair of the Committee, said: “Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life. Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.”
It also raised concerns about the timescale of plans for an underground radioactive waste facility, or Geological Disposal Facility.
It said: “The committee finds that the date for the GDF has slipped from 2040 to the late 2050s, with every decade of delay meaning Sellafield could need to construct another storage building, each costing £500m to £760m.”
NDA Group CEO David Peattie said: “We welcome the scrutiny of the committee and their report; we will now look in more detail at the recommendations and consider how best to address them. We take the findings seriously and the safety of the site and the wellbeing of our people will always be our highest priorities.
“As the committee has noted, Sellafield is the most complex and challenging nuclear site in the UK. We are pleased they recognise improvements in delivering major projects and that we are safely retrieving waste from all four highest hazard facilities.
“With the support of our employees, their representatives, community, and stakeholders we remain committed to driving forward improved performance and continuing to deliver our nationally important mission safely, securely, and sustainably.”
The Public Accounts Committee has published six recommendations in its report, including pressing the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield Ltd to give more insight to the Government about how it can reduce the cost of decommissioning.
Sellafield Ltd has not made enough progress in addressing the site’s most significant hazards
The report said several buildings on the site posed ‘intolerable’ risks due to their condition and the hazardous nature of the waste stored in them.
Magnox is likely to leak contaminated water into the ground until the oldest section of the building was removed, as a result of Sellafield Ltd’s underperformance will likely remain extremely hazardous for longer.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “The leak in the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo is contained and does not pose a risk to the public. Regulators accept that the current plan to tackle the leak is the most effective one.”
Sellafield Ltd had missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from these buildings, the report said.
The report added: “This was caused by some equipment not being in good enough condition, problems with installing new equipment and too few people having the skills required to operate the facilities.”
The committee has recommended that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is the sponsor of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, should set out what it will do differently to hold the authority and Sellafield Ltd to account for Sellafield Ltd’s performance against targets.
Sellafield Ltd’s targets do not allow it to demonstrate it is making meaningful progress
The report said: “We do not believe that the current target-setting process allows the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and NDA to distinguish between legitimate reasons for missing a target and underperformance.
“While carrying out work safely must come first, safety cannot be used as a ‘get out of jail free card’ to excuse poor performance.
“Sellafield Ltd needs to fundamentally transform how the site functions.”
It has recommended that Sellafield Ltd should publish medium-term targets, report on them annually and set out what actions will be needed to achieve a completely decommissioned site in the next 100 years and report progress every decade.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “We take performance incredibly seriously and our targets are deliberately ambitious, reflecting the scale and importance of the mission.
“In the past financial year (2024/25), Sellafield Ltd delivered 67.5% of its overall targets and 72.7% of its operating plan milestones.
“This included meeting expectations in managing special nuclear materials and initiating waste retrievals from all four legacy silos and ponds simultaneously – which took decades of preparation
“Delivery takes place against a backdrop of unique challenges, including first-of-a-kind operations and ageing infrastructure. The Covid-19 pandemic further disrupted access to the site between 2020 and 2023, delaying recovery and compounding these challenges.
“Our collective focus remains on the safe, secure, and value-driven management of the site, as we progress one of the world’s most critical environmental missions.”
Sellafield continues to repeat old mistakes
The report said Sellafield’s ability to deliver its largest projects on time and on budget was still too variable.
The report said while there were signs of recent improvement, Sellafield had a poor track record of delays and cost overruns.
It said: “Four of the largest projects will collectively cost £1.5 billion more and be delivered many years later than Sellafield Ltd expected in 2018.
“Nevertheless, there are some signs that a corner may finally have been turned. Sellafield is working with contractors in a different way, which places more emphasis on planning.”
The Programme and Project Partners model sees Sellafield Ltd work with four suppliers over 20 years, giving them incentives to develop the workforce.
£127m wasted on laboratory
The report highlights the example of one of Sellafield’s projects to refurbish an on site lab so it could continue analysing waste samples – essential for safety.
The report called it a very poorly managed project, which saw £127m wasted.
Sellafield Ltd stopped the project last year and the report said at this point, it was expected to cost up to £1 billion more than originally approved, with plutonium analysis capabilities around five years too late.
The report added: “Sellafield Ltd now believe it can cut this gap to around a year and save money by converting a different building instead.
“Poor asset management caused the long-term plan to become incoherent. It did not understand what state the laboratories were in or do the right remedial work to address their deterioration.”
The committee has recommended that Sellafield Ltd explains how it is addressing the deteriorating condition of its assets, which its safety experts have warned is making the site increasingly unsafe.
It also wants Sellafield Ltd to write to it within six months to update it on the timetable for plutonium analysis and how much it intends to spend on the replacement laboratory.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: “As with all major projects it is best practice to continually reevaluate and adapt the approach.
“We made the decision to pause the project due to alternative solutions becoming available which had not been previously which will provide better value for money and enhance the pace of our delivery, so that we achieve things quicker.”
Culture
The report found indications of a sub-optimal culture at the site.
Concerns were raised that given that the exceptionally hazardous nature of many of Sellafield’s activities, it was imperative that all employees and contractors on the site feel able to raise any concerns that they have without fear of consequences.
It said: “The committee is aware that the NDA paid £377,200 in 2023-24 to settle employment-related claims. Further, the PAC previously noted that non-disclosure agreements have been used elsewhere in the public sector to cover up failure.
“The report finds that Sellafield Ltd has signed 16 non-disclosure agreements in the last three years.”
The report has recommended that the authority’s annual report includes information about the prevalence and perception of bullying and harassment broken down by site and demographic groups, staff survey results and metrics.
The authority said: “We’re committed to an open and respectful culture and we’ve taken decisive action to enable this including strengthening our whistleblowing policy.
“Evidence shows the improvements are working and the report acknowledges the improvement in staff survey results over recent years, but we are never complacent and will continue to strive to ensure the NDA group is a place where everyone feels respected and empowered to raise issues, knowing that they will be acted upon appropriately.
“As the report notes, it is one of the conditions of Sellafield’s nuclear site licence to have a robust process for reporting safety issues and the independent nuclear regulator has given the site a “green rating” of compliance.”
Sir Geoffrey added: “The intolerable risks presented by Sellafield’s ageing infrastructure are truly world-class. When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world.
“This is why we expect Sellafield’s management of its assets, and the delivery of the project to decommission it, to be similarly world-class.
“Unfortunately, our latest report is interleaved with a number of examples of failure, cost overruns, and continuing safety concerns. Given the tens of billions at stake, and the dangers onsite to both the environment and human life, this is simply not good enough.
“As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the 100-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have.
“It is of vital importance that the Government grasp the daily urgency of the work taking place at Sellafield, and shed any sense of a far-off date of completion for which no-one currently living is responsible.
“Sellafield’s risks and challenges are those of the present day.
“There are some early indications of some improvement in Sellafield’s delivery which our report notes. Government must do far more to hold all involved immediately accountable to ensure these do not represent a false dawn, and to better safeguard both the public purse and the public itself.”
