Nuclear task group Chair’s report 2011–12 Introduction The future of nuclear in the UK The Nuclear Task Group formed in 2009 under the Since Fukushima there has been much debate about the chairmanship of Sion Edwards. It was to focus on the future of nuclear energy. A year or so on, other than nuclear construction sector and, like all of Constructing Germany abandoning nuclear energy, and Italy and Excellence’s activity, to engage clients, constructors, Switzerland stopping nuclear new builds, the picture suppliers and professional services from all interested remains pretty much unchanged, albeit perhaps a little sectors. delayed. Emerging countries are stepping forward and the position in the UK has arguably strengthened, despite My tenure as chairman started in June 2011 and was recent setbacks. The UK Government is still working to fortunate enough to have excellent foundations. For that I develop 16GWe by 2025 and this presents great thank Sion, and for his continued contribution. opportunities to the construction industry, which in turn could lead to major export potential. However we must In the first session we took time to discuss what our first deliver well in the UK to provide the track record for mission should be in support of the wider Constructing developers, constructors and supply chains to exploit. A Excellence vision, and what our programme going forward goal our task group will work tirelessly to achieve. should be. The mission statement that emerged was: ‘Promoting best practice to enable sustained Quarterly task group sessions improvement and enhanced value in nuclear construction’ We have maintained our quarterly meetings and in June 2011 we identified the following learning themes: This mission guides us in our work within both the nuclear and construction sectors. Building on ‘collaborative working’ . Delivering ‘productivity’ This report describes what has been accomplished over . Ensuring ‘project delivery.’ the past year and what we seek to do in the coming year. We engaged with the major nuclear client organisations Constructing Excellence and NIA in Japan EDF, Horizon, Centrica, Magnox, Sellafield, MOD, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.We have also had I would first like to reflect on one of the most significant contributions from the Young Generation Network, BRE, world events of 2011, the largest earthquakes Japan has HSE, BSRIA, colleges and universities, and other seen and the devastating Tsunami that followed. This government departments and industry representative coincided with our joint study tour to the Japan nuclear bodies. construction industry in March 2011, so our safe arrival home was greeted with great relief by our families and Summary reports are provided later with full details friends. The event continues to affect Japan and the available on request in minutes and presentations. For me world’s nuclear industry severely. there are some key messages: I think it fair to say we learnt a lot from their industry, . Constructing nuclear power stations needs to observing some truly best construction practice, from their incorporate the principles and practices of Japanese people in how they coped with the enormous collaborative working as promoted by Constructing disaster, and from each other. We are all truly grateful to Excellence to succeed. the Japanese construction companies in building . Productivity is a top-to-bottom challenge with clients structures that allowed Tokyo to survive and essentially be enabling the right physical and cultural environment to back up and working within 24 hours. A separate report is release potential productivity. available. Learning lessons is all very well, but how many will be re-learnt again if we cannot institutionalise what we have learnt. Other sectors have found ways to do this and so must we. We need to ensure for the reputation of our industry that . A guide to collaborative working in the nuclear sector, these messages are understood, and help the industry plus a paper on who needs to be influenced and understand what needs to be done to accomplish that. how. This will be hard and requires commitment from a fair number of us. Updates from other organisations For the Future We have had regular updates from: In addition to the usual information transfer elements of . National Skills Academy Nuclear our activity, we have a range of subjects we wish to Charlie Bray has provided regular updates on skills, explore based around: progress has included: . Transforming and skilling a workforce to work - Certificate of Nuclear Professionalism, a new MSc collaboratively. level course . Developing a knowledge-led sector. - Existing Triple Bar now available at Quality Assured . Programme and project delivery processes. Training providers with eLearning available We will continue to reach out to other sectors and - New Build Triple Bar, Nuclear Skills Passport being countries to learn wherever we can. We also wish to be developed more effective in supporting our industry and have ideas - Nuclear Skills Awards 2012. that include speaking at events, publishing papers, and . Nuclear Industries Association developing training and toolkits. Chris Savage has provided regular updates covering We will continue to engage with all elements of the sector an update of the 2006 Capability review, the including clients, consultants, constructors and supply establishment of a Programme Management Board chain. that is identifying areas of common interest across all developers and starting to progress joint work. Other achievements . Constructing Excellence Don Ward ensured we were aware of the broader We had sub-groups deliver on: range of their activities, especially on collaborative . An industry checklist of input requirements from client working. ‘this is what we need to be productive’, based on the 2012 Construction Commitments which helped the My sincere thanks Olympics deliver successfully. There are many people I would like to thank, our . Models for driving collaborative working in the sector, speakers, those that hosted our sessions, Don Ward and including integrator-led alliancing - what it is, how you Deborah Hynes for their constant support, and all the do it, and why (the business case). members of the task group for wanting to make a difference. We can and will. Session Reports June 2011 We visited the Energy Skills Centre at Bridgewater College to see what was happening around the area where the first nuclear power plant in the UK since Sizewell B will be built. Speakers highlighted standards, safety and quality, as well as what the college were doing to help upskill the local workforce. Workshops were undertaken to establish our mission and work programme over the next 12 months. Nuclear Standards on EDF’s NNB Programme Regulating major construction projects Chris Squires - EDF Philip White – HSE Chris talked about EDF’s programme for HPC and the Philip presented on ‘Regulating major construction projects application of Nuclear Standards. We learnt that HPC is at and nuclear new build’. He talked about risks arising from the enabling stage and 2 EPRs are to be built, currently work activities being properly controlled, intervention being assessed through the GDA process by the Office of strategies, client expectations, committed leadership, Nuclear Regulation. Considerations being addressed integrated teams, health and safety culture, occupational include: nuclear safety and classifications, design codes, health, and seeing health and safety as an enabler of nuclear site licensing and quality. projects. Japan reflections from the CE/NIA study tour Energy Skills Centre, Bridgewater College Adrian Worker – CH2M Hill Andy Berry - Bridgewater College Adrian spoke of the key lessons from Japan that included: Bridgewater College are working with EDF on new build and quality pre-planning being essential, collaborative working is NDA and Magnox on decommissioning. They are the south- integral, safety is an endemic part of the Japanese culture west’s hub of NSAN and received funding from EDF to affecting all elements of the projects, quality is also an develop the college to develop local skills by offering integral part of their culture. In the UK, we have come a foundation degrees and NVQs in nuclear decommissioning, long way but there remains a long way to go. engineering and other nuclear topics. Standards, tools and materials The LINK Alliance for decommissioning Dr Julie Bregulla - BRE Simon Lander – Mott MacDonald Julie talked about standards, tools and materials for the Simon presented on ‘The Link Alliance’ led by Mott nuclear sector. BRE is a research consultancy offering MacDonald which offers a unique combination of six key testing, certification and training. They are developing professional service suppliers. It was formed in 2010 with a solutions to manage risk through field and laboratory trials, charter outlining their vision, goals and values and a new using quantitative and qualitative risk assessment methods. commercial strategy. They recognise and promote the They also address sustainability to enable informed choices principles of early engagement, long term framework and of materials, technical feasibility, design to aid innovation, collaborative working. working with Eurocodes, safety concepts, reliability expectations. September 2011 – Collaborative working We visited the Coleg Menai, Llangefni, Wales, to learn about what was happening locally on Anglesey, and we focused on collaborative working, looking also at other sector