Corporate report

Sellafield Ltd Enterprise Strategy 2020

Published 10 November 2020

1. Enterprise Strategy 2020

Our Manifesto is a simple one-page document that shows the company we want to be – a Sellafield of which we can all be proud.

Our purpose, that we are creating a clean and safe environment for future generations, sets out why we are here and the importance of what each and every one of us does.

The 9 behaviours were created by more than 400 of our people setting out the behavioural expectation of everyone helping us to deliver our purpose.

Nine behaviours that will help us to succeed and to create the change that will benefit us all.

We have included our manifesto because we cannot deliver our strategy without this change.

Creating these behaviours and relationships is vital to delivering our strategy and satisfying the expectation of communities and stakeholders.

2. Introduction

I am delighted to welcome you to our Sellafield Enterprise Strategy 2020.

This strategy flows from our purpose of ‘creating a clean and safe environment for future generations.’ Sellafield is an important part of the NDA group, working collaboratively with others in the group to deliver our part of the NDA mission.

Like our manifesto our strategy outlines the type of organisation Sellafield wants to be, whilst clearly setting our 2020 - 2025 objectives.

We are responsible for mitigating a major national risk at Sellafield, which means High Hazard Risk Reduction remains our number one priority.

Over the next 3 - 5 years we will see our waste activities transition to ‘retrievals – processing – storage’ activities giving us an operational/manufacturing mindset.

This strategy has been developed to be modular to make it easy to access and it should be used as a guide for the organisation.

Like our manifesto it is ours, it is a live document and will be updated to reflect changing context. We welcome all comments and conversations on how we can make it better and more useable.

Our strategy relies on the behaviours in our manifesto to create a great place to work, with motivated people pulling together as one team to deliver our objectives.

Martin Chown Chief Executive Officer

3. Sellafield by numbers

3.1 Key messages

Nuclear safety and security remain at the heart of everything we do. Our risk-based management framework drives our priorities for the duration of this strategy, focusing on reducing the time at risk for our intolerable facilities.

Sellafield still has approximately 100 years of work in front of us, and our future will include as many challenges and opportunities as we have already faced.

During the next 5 years we will make significant progress in addressing urgent risk reduction on the Sellafield site.

We need to deliver lifetime value for money for the taxpayer, which means getting the right balance of investment in effectiveness as well as efficiency.

We need to save money whilst continuing to deliver our mission and maintaining and building the capabilities we need for our future.

Our purpose is about getting the right balance of risk now against legacy for future generations. Our work has no risk-free options, our job is to understand and manage all these risks safely and securely and remediate our environment with maximum value to the nation.

This strategy is about taking a lifetime perspective, with increasing focus on waste processing and environmental remediation. As well as reliable repeatable operations, in future we need to deliver innovation and change reliably.

We are used to focusing on our own area, delivering local excellence. In the future, good performance will be judged across the whole site and we need to make choices holistically, as one enterprise, considering everybody’s objectives, and working collaboratively with the supply chain.

We deliver a UK mission, providing strategic capabilities and managing national assets and liabilities.

Our success will lie in attracting, keeping and motivating our people to deliver unique and challenging work carefully, conscientiously and creatively.

We will make our workplaces inclusive, attractive, interesting and enjoyable for our staff and supply chain workforce.

This enterprise strategy reflects our purpose as defined in our Manifesto.

Our immediate priorities are driven by hazard reduction to avoid a serious event.

Our strategy is about what sort of organisation Sellafield Ltd wants to be in 20, 50 and 100 years.

Looking back in 2040, we would like our stakeholders to say:

• Sellafield have minimised risk, reduced potential off-site impact and improved the environment

• Sellafield is a good employer and a supportive neighbour and partner. We trust them and enjoy working with them

• Sellafield safely and securely store the inventory in modern stores until it is disposed of

• Sellafield has helped build strong communities which are not dependent on the site to thrive

4. This Strategy

This strategy is driven by Sellafield’s purpose and manifesto. It is informed by and aligned to the overall NDA mission, the NDA’s Strategy 4, and the developing functional strategies.

The strategic specification from the NDA determines the technical strategic envelope for our scope.

The principles and objectives defined in our strategy describe what we will do in order to deliver our purpose with the maximum public value.

4.1 Our Future

This strategy comes at a time when the focus of our work is shifting towards waste management and storage, and environmental remediation.

In addition to the nuclear skills and capabilities we are justifiably proud of, we need to learn new skills and develop new capabilities.

Our strategic focus areas continue, with only minor changes to better reflect our purpose in the current context.

NDA seeks to be trusted to deliver more and we need to recognise that our location and our skilled and experienced people are assets which could support that.

We don’t know if new missions will be assigned to Sellafield Ltd as an organisation, but we know that we have an important part to play in making such opportunities come to fruition.

We are the biggest part of the NDA and our performance is a critical part of the success of the NDA group and the confidence of stakeholders.

Our scope is determined by NDA and government, and we will continue to work collaboratively with them to develop our site strategy to maximise lifetime value.

We will challenge ourselves robustly to ensure our strategies take account of short- and long-term objectives and are resilient to the uncertainties of such a long-term purpose.

4.2 Context

Government has committed to leading the world on climate change and achieving net zero by 2050. The nuclear sector deal is a critical part of the industrial strategy and areas like skills and innovation.

Public expectations are changing, we all expect more than just a strong financial bottom line, we expect good corporate citizens. Sellafield is increasingly high profile as a large industrial site.

For example, we deliver a significant number of the government’s large complex projects, pay the third highest business rates, are the largest apprentice employer, have the largest water abstraction licence, etc. We make a national difference.

4.3 NDA Group

We will embrace our role as part of the wider NDA group. Our priority remains the safe, secure reduction of risk and the management of the Sellafield site.

We also have an important role to play in supporting the wider areas of the NDA group’s mission to provide maximum collective value to the UK taxpayer.

Delivering at Sellafield and supporting other parts of the group means that the scale of our activity makes us influential in local, regional and national contexts.

Our scope is set out in the NDA’s strategy which is routinely refreshed and consulted on. The latest version can be found on the NDA website.

This document has been prepared through the period of the covid pandemic and the impact of this remains uncertain. Milestone dates provided as therefore subject to change.

5. NDA Strategic Themes and 2040 Timeline

6. The next 3 - 5 years at Sellafield

Sellafield will change over the next 3 to 5 years. We are currently investing in one of the largest portfolios of complex major projects in the country, creating the facilities we need for the next stage of our purpose.

Our retrievals programmes are transitioning into a regular drumbeat of large-scale operational activities, establishing the process of recovering, treating and packaging waste.

Similarly, we will move from small scale repackaging in our special nuclear materials facilities into a long-term production process.

By 2025 we will

• Make Sellafield a great place to work by living and breathing our manifesto behaviours

• Demonstrate our nuclear professionalism by our visible pride in our environment

• Work in an agile and adaptive way using digital technology

• Create shared confidence in our programme and major project delivery

• Have much greater understanding of the value and cost of our operations

• Recognise and share expertise across the NDA Group

We will commission and operate some of our major new waste treatment and storage plants, setting to work the Box Encapsulation Plant Product Store Direct Import Facility (BEPPS DIF), the Box Encapsulation Plant (BEP) and others.

These new operations have a lifetime of decades and will be core to our delivery between now and 2040.

We will use all our learning from reprocessing operations to implement lean manufacturing techniques and streamline the operations to retrieve waste, move and treat it and transfer it in long-term packages into safe secure storage.

The output of this work will be safe, secure waste packages for long-term storage.

The secure waste packages, including 3,000 self-shielded boxes, 16,000 3m3 boxes, and 33,000 special nuclear material packages, will be our high value, high quality product. Each product will be fully costed to drive value for money.

Each product is high value not just in terms of money but because every product represents a unit of significant hazard reduction – creating a clean and safe environment for future generations.

We will introduce and deploy value stream mapping to understand flow and constraints. We will understand the cost and time for each stage of work so we can understand where we can optimise processes and generate savings.

We will invest in technology to make our work simpler, more controlled and effective. The digital technology will include Building Information Management (BIM) and digital twins for our facilities to be used in operations and training.

We will also invest in our ongoing site infrastructure for the decades to come, setting to work the new SIXEP Contingency Plant (SCP) to maintain the effluent treatment on the site beyond the lifetime of the current assets and implementing our Replacement Analytical Services Project to maintain analytical capabilities into the future.

We will be able to simplify some of the interdependencies between facilities, particularly in effluent treatment.

In parallel with this, we will be ramping up our capability for decommissioning and remediation of the site. We will decommission and demolish redundant plants, building our capabilities, reducing risk and creating space for our growing waste management activities.

We have big plans for delivery over the next 5 years. Getting the support we require from stakeholders will require us to continue to demonstrate improvements in nuclear, radiological and conventional safety, in security and in delivery performance.

We will demonstrate that we can be trusted to deliver our purpose professionally, effectively and efficiently in order to secure continued or enhanced levels of funding and support.

Core retrieval, re-packaging and waste production operations remain a significant proportion of our work over the coming years. Changes in the other areas will allow us to make some choices about how we deliver our scope.

In particular we will have more options for innovative use of our people, technology and the supply chain. We will also have more flexibility to manage any changes in priorities and funding.

Creating modern, streamlined and reliable operations in our high hazard risk reduction programmes will stretch our capabilities and challenge our leadership.

Getting these new operations running is the next challenge in Sellafield’s history.

6.1 Measuring success

Our success in delivering this strategy will be measured against the range of metrics below.

We will develop these measures to use as enterprise-level performance indicators.

• We will improve our performance in nuclear, radiological and conventional safety, in security and in environmental management

• We will reduce hazard and risk at pace. We will measure the reduction of the radioactive inventory of our legacy facilities.

• We will measure the time and cost to generate each high-quality high value waste product, including design, operations support retrieval, waste processing and storage

• We will enhance the storage conditions of materials that must be stored. We will measure the number of legacy packages we repackage and relocate into fit for purpose facilities

• We will deliver our projects faster and provide better value for money. We will measure Schedule Performance Index, Cost Performance Index and our ability to get it right first time

• We will estimate our carbon footprint and measure our reduction of it, across the lifetime of our facilities

• We will improve productivity, measuring our operational output in units (a unit might be a waste package produced) and reducing the cost of providing enabling functions or services

• We will model our value streams to enable us to measure inputs, processing and outputs for each element

• We will determine our people capability plan and measure availability of skills required

6.2 Our People, Supply Chain and Communities

Our relationships with people are the key to our success.

We are an organisation who are closely integrated with our supply chain, industry and communities and this has always been a core element of our enterprise.

Our employees and suppliers are an integral part of the communities around our sites, supporting local organisations and providing their expertise and services to local and regional institutions.

In times of need, we step up to support the community, as an organisation and as individuals. As an enterprise, we appreciate and value this personal service from our employees and work to enable volunteers where we can.

In line with our manifesto, we will continue to invest in building trusting and collaborative relationships with all of these groups to enable us to deliver our purpose.

We will use our clarity of purpose to create motivation and alignment in our teams, to attract the skills we need, to measure our performance and to celebrate our successes.

Our relationships are founded on our organisational and individual behaviours. We aim to work together to deliver more.

We recognise that others have different strengths and we are building partnerships which value and leverage our collective abilities to deliver value for all.

Sellafield has been the backbone of West Cumbria’s economy for 70 years. In 2018, Oxford Economics demonstrated the significance of Sellafield’s contribution to the UK economy and the positive socio-economic impacts felt locally and nationally, but also highlighted risks around local economic diversity and resilience.

We also provide a key capability in the Warrington area. By supporting our communities to exploit and develop their capabilities, we will enable them to generate greater value and drive economic diversification.

The Sellafield site has potential to be used as a technological test bed where new technologies can be developed, deployed and proven.

We will use innovation, digital technology and big data to simplify and modernise the management of the site, to reduce our energy demand and decarbonise our operations.

We will share learning with others, working collaboratively with industrial, commercial and community partners.

7. Principles and objectives 2020 - 2025

These principles below (left) describe what sort of organisation we want to be and what is important to us.

The top level structure of the objectives 2020 - 2025 (right) is our purpose statement and all the objectives support and contribute to this purpose.

8. Safe, Secure, Sustainable, Site Stewardship

Our first strategic focus area continues to be our visible commitment to safety and security and our responsibility as the steward of one of the largest and more hazardous sites in the world.

We have added sustainability to reflect our commitment to this important value.

The potential consequences of a nuclear safety or security event on the site are extremely significant, for the local region, the UK and the international nuclear industry.

8.1 Exemplify proactive safety, security and sustainability

Safety, security and sustainability are at the heart of what we do and who we are.

Our purpose recognises the importance of the legacy we leave for future generations.

Our purpose is to deal with our inventory of hazardous materials and facilities in order to make them safe and secure for the current and future communities in which we live.

Some of the legacy facilities we manage are already in an intolerable condition and recovering them to an acceptable safe state is the most urgent imperative for our work. Nuclear safety takes priority.

Our risk-based management framework illustrates the different conditions of our facilities and the imperative to reduce the time at risk in degrading facilities.

We will

• Be recognised for exemplary safety, security and sustainability leadership

• Design safety, security and sustainability as enablers for performance

• Implement innovative technologies and approaches to enable delivery with proportionate safety, security and sustainability

8.2 Reduce Carbon and Enhance the Environment

The expectations of the public are evolving quickly as we learn more about the challenges and impacts of climate change. International, national and regional climate commitments reflect the need for all organisations to play a part.

Our purpose recognises the importance of the legacy we leave for future generations, of which our environmental legacy is a significant element.

We will

• Be recognised for exemplary environmental leadership

• Embed the waste management hierarchy in the way we behave

• Minimise radiological and other discharges to the environment

• Be recognised as a leader in low-carbon infrastructure project delivery

• Significantly reduce our lifetime carbon footprint in line with agreed road map

• Incorporate lifetime carbon and other environmental criteria into strategic decision making

• Optimise our demand for natural resources including energy and water

• Consider alternative waste treatment technologies to significantly reduce waste volumes

8.3 Manage a Smart, Agile and Resilient Site

We will deliver improvements in the provision of site services, infrastructure, transport and logistics. We will prepare sites for future new build assets and maximise the use of existing waste treatment assets.

Optimised and integrated asset management will help create a clean and safe environment both now and for future generations.

We will

• Refurbish and / or replace key facilities and equipment

• Replace analytical facilities and future-proof services

• Establish proactive preventative maintenance and asset care

• Release prepared land packages to de-risk delivery of new build facilities

9. Progress at Pace

Our second strategic focus area remains progress in delivering our purpose. In this update of the strategy we have added ‘at pace’.

This reflects that we have made some significant steps over recent years, moving from design and build, to installation and operation in our legacy ponds and silos and completing some major projects and commencing more.

We have established the foundations for delivery across the site and our focus therefore is to build on these with appropriate pace and urgency.

A key change in this area is the increasing prominence of waste treatment, management and storage as a core part of our purpose.

9.1 Control and Repackage Special Nuclear Material

Our purpose requires us to safely and securely manage special nuclear material, without foreclosing future options for government policy in relation to the use or disposal of these materials.

Our work to deal with potentially defective packages, repackaging these materials to reduce risk of degradation is a key priority.

We will

• Condition and package all plutonium materials for long term safe and secure storage

• Safely and securely store uranic material pending disposition

• Enable consolidation of materials at Sellafield

• Be recognised as leading the development of UK Alpha Resilience and Capability

• Transform former operational and storage facilities to enable reuse or decommissioning

9.2 Empty Legacy Ponds and Silos

As part of our clean-up of the Sellafield site, we must empty the legacy ponds and silos of waste as soon as reasonably practicable.

We also safely maintain the structural integrity of these legacy storage facilities while we are either preparing to retrieve, or retrieving waste, to prevent a significant uncontrolled release of activity to the environment.

We will

• Remove waste at pace from ponds and silos

• Deliver waste treatment and storage plants without constraining retrievals timescales

• Deliver transport and packages without constraining retrievals timescales

• Demonstrate dewatering and decontamination of facilities following bulk retrievals

9.3 Lead the UK in Predictable Project Delivery

Our purpose requires new buildings that can hold waste, sludge and fuel, or that can process nuclear waste into stable forms that can be safely stored and ultimately disposed of.

These projects are key enablers to the successful delivery of our purpose.

We will

• Deliver projects predictably to meet business case commitments

• Develop future-proof programme outcomes and drivers which meet evolving business need

• Design agility and modular construction to facilitate the deployment of new technology

• Enhance environment through design, construction, equipment, logistics and materials

• Explicitly recognise uncertainty in planning leading to better forecasting

• Develop intelligent client capability

9.4 Support National Imperatives

In support of our purpose, we utilise our unique capabilities to support a range of other government policies and NDA commercial obligations.

We will

• Conclude reprocessing and establish storage regimes for remaining fuel

• Support defueling of UK nuclear stations, during generation and defueling

• Complete vitrification and waste returns to meet NDA customer requirements

• Support NDA and government regarding plutonium disposition policy and strategy development

• Support NDA and government contracts and international relations e.g. at Fukushima

• Share learning and best practice with other UK public and private organisations

9.5 Create Quality Waste Products

Our purpose requires us to retrieve waste and decommission facilities, creating waste products which are passively safe and secure for the long-term.

The same focus on quality and tolerances which we have applied to production of fuel or reprocessing will continue to need to be applied to our waste packages in the future.

Waste packages are the product which we will be manufacturing in the future.

We will

• Apply the waste management hierarchy as a practical decision-making tool for dealing with waste

• Produce good quality waste products which meet the conditions for acceptance

• Develop smart records management and storage capabilities utilising technology effectively

• Optimise waste management by using existing and future treatment and disposal routes appropriately

• Enable adequate waste routes to enable us to deliver our purpose such that no work is constrained

9.6 Remediate Site towards Agreed End States

In order to deliver our purpose we must clean up the site progressively, working towards agreed interim and final end states within appropriate timescales.

As facilities reach the end of their operations, we will decontaminate and decommission them.

We will manage the waste responsibly throughout and remediate land progressively in line with our purpose.

We will

• Develop an effective site decommissioning and remediation capability

• Characterise facilities and prioritise decommissioning activities holistically

• Enable delivery of the site end state as soon as reasonably practicable with a progressive reduction in risk and hazard

• Review interim and end states through engagement with stakeholders

• Complete post operational clean out to avoid future intolerable facilities

• Enhance contaminated land monitoring, management and forward plan

10. Lifetime Value for Money

Our third strategic focus area is broader than a financial context and so we have used the phase lifetime value for money to reflect this wider holistic view of value.

At the heart of our purpose is avoiding a safety or security event with potential for off-site consequences.

Our investments in asset care, care and maintenance and decommissioning reduce the lifetime cost of the site or individual facilities. We are cleaning up a legacy site and reducing the government’s long-term liabilities.

In the process, we can create addition value by leaving a positive legacy for the environment, our workforce and our communities.

This could be anything from improvements in biodiversity, to improved public health or sustainable local businesses.

We also contribute to other government policy objectives, such as supporting the nuclear sector deal or reducing emissions in support of climate change.

Throughout, we must maintain our ‘social licence to operate’. The continued existence of Sellafield Ltd in its current form is totally dependent on stakeholders including our workforce, government, regulators and local communities having the confidence that we are maintaining safety and security and delivering on our commitments.

10.1 Unlock the Potential of Our People

Our purpose is to create a clean and safe environment. In order to achieve this, we will need a fully engaged workforce which includes the right people, in the right roles, at the right time behaving in the manner set out in our manifesto which allows everyone to perform at their best.

We will

• Develop the right shared mindset for compliance, agility and creative problem solving

• Engage the workforce in a clear and positive purpose and vision for the future

• Create a modern and vibrant workplace, with simple, easy ways to work

• Have leaders who create a high-performance environment

• Invest to build the capabilities we need to deliver our purpose

• Establish TU strategic partnerships

10.2 Drive Innovative Solutions for the Future

Our purpose is to create a clean and safe environment by cleaning up the site. In order to do so, we will continue to utilise innovative technologies and approaches to achieve higher standards of safety, security and sustainability, to accelerate our delivery and to make us more effective and efficient.

We will

• Progress full-scale thermal treatment of waste

• Deploy generic substantiation principles enabling use of smart instruments systems, robotics and automation

• Use low-carbon construction materials

• Develop alternative approaches or technologies to remove human hands from gloveboxes

10.3 Be a Supportive Employer, Neighbour and Industrial Partner

Our purpose recognises the importance of the legacy we leave for future generations. A focus on creating a positive legacy for our communities is core to the sort of organisation which we want Sellafield to be.

We will

• Create an attractive, diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone is valued

• Support projects creating sustainable self-reliance and inclusive growth

• Support projects increasing skills, knowledge and access to economic opportunity

• Make Sellafield a showcase to the world for UK innovation and talent

• Develop mutually supportive relationships with regional, industrial and other partners

• Contribute to delivery of the Nuclear Sector Deal targets

10.4 Minimise Liability for Future Generations

Our purpose recognises the importance of the legacy we leave for future generations. A focus on reducing the future liabilities we create is a critical element of the way in which we deliver our purpose.

We will

• Enable appropriate and flexible waste routes in advance of need

• Optimise long term safe and secure storage on the site

• Prioritise innovation and investment based on lifetime impact on liabilities

10.5 Maximise Public Value and Return on Investment

Our purpose requires us to develop and deploy a broad spectrum of skills and capabilities.

By engaging with a diverse supply chain, we can create an environment in which we are able to integrate our own internal experience, capabilities and know-how with the expertise, capacity and capability of the supply chain; developing fit for purpose, innovative solutions whilst demonstrating value for money to the UK taxpayer.

We will

• Maximise social value through our procurements to create resilient communities and growth

• Increase access to a resilient, sustainable, innovative and diverse supply chain

• Simplify our processes to increase effectiveness and efficiency

• Embed a fit-for-purpose and continuous improvement mindset

• Be recognised as a trusted, credible and reliable organisation by government