NDA SME action plan 2023
Updated 21 April 2023
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Forewords
Emma Ferguson-Gould, NDA Group Chief Commercial and Business Development Officer
As owners of one of the largest nuclear decommissioning and remediation programmes in Europe, the NDA’s purpose is to clean up the UK’s earliest nuclear sites safely, securely and cost effectively. The NDA group exists in some of the most geographically remote locations across England, Scotland, and Wales, and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are delivering critical goods and services at the heart of our supply chain whilst supporting local economies and communities, as demonstrated in our NDA group supply chain (tier 1) spend image below.
UK map showing the NDA group supply chain spends (tier1) by constituency from April 2019 to March
Bidding for Government contracts can highlight barriers for SMEs, particularly within challenging and complex industries such as Nuclear Decommissioning. As such we set ourselves a new stretching SME action plan, through which the NDA group aims to increase visibility of opportunities and further immerse ourselves in the SME community.
We strive to continue to achieve £1 in every £3 of our annual supply chain spend with SMEs, and the SME agenda for us is more than just a target. It’s about us being the best client we can be by successfully delivering challenging projects which directly affect this and future generations and being as easy as possible to do business with.
Please continue to challenge me and my team to deliver on this Action Plan, and if you have suggestions on how we could do more, contact CommercialStandards@nda.gov.uk and we will be happy to discuss these with you.
Martin Traynor, Small Business Crown Representative, Cabinet Office
Across Public Sector Procurement, working with SMEs brings value to contracting authorities through their innovation, service and social value for the local communities that SMEs are based in. Too often, SMEs encounter barriers to competing for public procurement opportunities. These barriers stop SMEs from being able to find the right opportunities for them, they fail to create a level playing field that allows SMEs to compete fairly, and they make the working relationship difficult through poor contract management and payment performance.
In my role as Small Business Crown Representative, I encourage all contracting authorities to consider specific actions they can take to reduce and remove these barriers to SMEs. These plans need to be ambitious and comprehensive, addressing the wide range of challenges that SMEs encounter. It is not just the SMEs that benefit from this, but the contracting authorities who gain access to new and competitive suppliers who offer fantastic value.
The themes identified by the NDA in this new SME Action Plan capture the broad challenges that SMEs face. The steps that NDA are committing to will build on previous successes and will help to open new opportunities, new supply markets, and smooth the relationship between the NDA and SMEs in their supply chain. I welcome the NDA’s commitments and look forward to continuing to work with the Authority to champion SMEs.
Introduction
Procurement at the NDA
Our decommissioning mission covers 17 sites across England, Scotland, and Wales. The NDA group comprises of 5 operating companies, and NDA:
| Operating Company | 2020 to 2021 Annual Procurement Spend |
|---|---|
| Nuclear Decommissioning Authority | £109m |
| Sellafield Limited | £1.07bn |
| Magnox Limited | £218m |
| Dounreay Site Restoration Limited | £75.6m |
| Nuclear Transport Services | £82.8m |
| Nuclear Waste Services | £76.9m |
| Total | £1.6bn |
The procurement activity across the NDA group covers a very wide range of requirements, including:
- Technology: cloud services, voice and data services, software, and hardware.
- Corporate Services: HR services, office services, financial services, travel, fleet, resourcing, professional services, and learning and development.
- Property: facilities management, estates management, modular buildings, security, and energy and utilities.
- Capital projects and Infrastructure: construction and decommissioning projects (demolition and remediation).
- Site Operations: chemicals and materials, consumables, access and insulation, equipment, and engineering services.
- Manufactured Products and Services: packaging, waste services, and transport.
This SME Action Plan focuses on the engagement between the NDA (as opposed to the NDA group) and SMEs. There are objectives within this plan that refer to the NDA group, as the NDA aims to influence and provide guidance to the group.
Some Operating Companies develop and manage their own SME Action Plan (or equivalent) which can be accessed below:
The NDA aspires to influence all Operating Companies to produce an SME Action plan (see objective 3).
NDA’s role across the group:
The NDA’s role in procurement activity varies across the group. The NDA may lead or participate in contracts that are either solely for the NDA, or for collaborative procurements across the group in which they are a participating entity. For those procurements (e.g., large construction-based procurements) whereby the NDA is not a participating entity, and the requirement is for the operating companies, the NDA oversees procurements assisting in assurance and governance activities.
What do we consider to be an SME?
The current SME definition is a business with fewer than 250 employees, a turnover of less than €50m or a balance sheet total less than €43m.
| Company size | Staff headcount | Turnover (or) | Balance Sheet Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium-sized | < 250 | ≤ € 50 m | ≤ € 43 m |
| Small | < 50 | ≤ € 10 m | ≤ € 10 m |
| Micro | < 10 | ≤ € 2 m | ≤ € 2 m |
Our spend and opportunities
The NDA group spend summary
A summary of the NDA group spend is broken down below to display our total supply chain spend broken down by ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ SME spend.
| Financial Year | Total Spend | Total Direct SME Spend | Total Indirect SME Spend | Total SME Spend | % Spend with SMEs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 to 2018 | £1.69bn | £15m | £470m | £486m | 28.6% |
| 2018 to 2019 | £1.71bn | £134m | £424m | £558m | 32.5% |
| 2019 to 2020 | £1.73bn | £46m | £515m | £561m | 32.3% |
| 2020 to 2021 | £1.64bn | £206m | £263m | £470m | 28.6% |
**2020 to 2021 NDA spend saw a decline due to the impact of COVID-19. During lockdown many of our sites operated at a reduced capacity, limiting operations to those that were critical. Despite a reduction in spend the NDA group continued to run SME forums and engagement sessions to ensure that SMEs were aware of the impact of COVID-19 and how to engage in ongoing business activities/opportunities.
NDA spend summary
| Financial Year | Total Spend | Total Direct SME Spend | Total Indirect SME Spend | Total SME Spend | % Spend with SMEs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 to 2020 | £230m | £46m | £42m | £88m | 38.2% |
| 2020 to 2021 | £109m | £17m | £20m | £37.4m | 34.2% |
Commercial pipelines
The NDA has adopted the Government’s standard “Commercial Pipeline” across our entire group. These pipelines seek to look forward a minimum of 18 months to award of contract and are updated on a quarterly basis to ensure that they are as robust as possible. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that they are accurate, the nature of our work means that changes in requirements and/or timelines is inevitable.
Opportunities are published on either Contracts Finder (https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder) and/or Find a Tender System (Find high value contracts in the public sector - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)).
Below is a link to the NDA’s current procurement pipeline:
For links to the current pipelines across the NDA group please see the below:
- Sellafield Procurement Pipeline
- Magnox Procurement Pipeline
- DSRL Procurement Pipeline
- NWS Procurement Pipeline
Case Studies
HEPA Filters awarded to Emcel Filters Limited
The NDA group ran an OJEU open competition to procure a range of nuclear grade HEPA filters to support site wide operations across the NDA estate for Sellafield, Magnox and DSRL. The prior contract had been awarded to a single, large supplier. The NDA worked across the group to coordinate a strategy to award to x2 Suppliers to encourage SMEs to bid, developing the capability and capacity within the supply chain. The tender was split in to 2 baskets and awarded to:
- Basket 1 (70%) – Camfil (formerly MC Air Filtration Limited)
- Basket 2 (30%) – Emcel Filters Limited
Emcel Filters Ltd are an SME with 50 employees and are based in Horsham, West Sussex. An agreement has been made with Emcel that a careful, controlled, and supported approach will be taken to develop Emcel’s capability through close Contract Management.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
The NDA group ran a collaborative procurement exercise in 2021 for the provision of PPE under which there were x3 lots:
- Lot 1: Conventional Personal Protective Equipment.
- Lot 2: Workwear
- Lot 3: Specialist Personal Protective Equipment
Following an Open OEJU competition, all three lots were awarded to Romar Innovate, a West-Cumbrian SME. Romar will continue to invest in their Cumbria based infrastructure and personnel, as well as maintaining high levels of service and innovation in partnership across the NDA group.
Our Action Plan
Our action plan aims to reduce barriers to SMEs and encourage SMEs to work with us. There are 3 key areas of focus to encourage greater SME participation:
- Visibility of Opportunities
- Engagement with the SME community
- Streamline internal processes
Objective 1
Improve visibility of the NDA landscape and opportunities for SMEs to work with us.
Action (NDA group target): Promote networking and marketing opportunities through the delivery of a regular national supply chain event, including supply chain awards. To be completed by 21 July 2023 (future dates TBC).
Action (NDA group target): Improve the accuracy/integrity of the procurement pipeline. To be completed by Q2 2023
Action (NDA target): Create and maintain a programme of supplier events across the group to provide SMEs with visibility of upcoming engagement opportunities. To be completed by Q1 2023
Objective 2
Increase engagement in the SME supplier community
** Action (NDA group target)**: Measuring success: The NDA will aim to spend £1 in every £3 of its annual supply chain spend with SMEs (either directly or indirectly). Data to be collected quarterly and measured annually.
** Action (NDA target)**: Category management - NDA Category teams will host annual engagement events to allow supplier to ‘meet the team’. To be completed annually.
Action (NDA target): Share SME success stories/case studies with key stakeholders (e.g., Cabinet Office/SME Champions) and the wider supplier community. Ongoing target.
Objective 3
Streamline internal processes to reduce barriers to SMEs.
Action (NDA group target): Enhance our current Commercial IT systems to increase visibility of pipelines, sourcing and contract management activities. The systems suite will be divided in to 5 components:
- Source-to-contract system. To be completed by Q4 2022/23
- Contract management system. To be completed by Q3 2022/23
- Supply chain risk management system. To be completed by Q2 2023/24
Action (NDA group target): Procurement reform: Leverage the UK’s exit from the EU to simplify procurement processes. To be completed by Sept 2023 onwards.
Action (NDA group target): SME Action Plans: work with our Operating Companies to encourage them to adopt and maintain an SME Action Plan. Ongoing target.