The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) denies welshing on a funding pledge it made in the summer. But the quango is being taken to task by the site's community liaison body over how the issue has been handled.

Dounreay Stakeholder Group (DSG) is also sore that it was kept in the dark about the cutback.

According to managers at the plant, the £8.5 million shortfall will not lead to job losses but they believe it will delay some clean-up projects scheduled to go ahead over the winter and spring.

Last month the NDA announced that it would expect Dounreay and the other defunct reactor sites in the UK to shave three per cent off their current budgets through efficiency savings.

In Dounreay's case, this would amount to £4.5 million from its previously announced £151 million budget.

In addition, the NDA has revealed that it will not be allowing Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the site licence company, to carry forward the £4 million it did not spend in 2007/08.

Speaking at DSG's latest meeting on Wednesday, Dounreay trade union representative John Deighan said this had come like a bolt out of the blue.

He said: "We were assured at our meeting in June that the NDA funding for Dounreay would remain at about £150 million for the next three years.

"It therefore came as a great shock to all the hard-working people at Dounreay to find out about this cut.

"It's vitally important that Dounreay is given sustainable funding and that it is not nibbled away to support other nuclear organisations in this country."

DSG chairman Alastair MacDonald said he understood the funding was guaranteed.

Mr MacDonald said it is a repeat of the controversy which erupted in December 2006 when the Caithness site faced swingeing spending cutbacks.

He said: "We felt the whole thing was badly handled and we had a meeting with the NDA which we thought would resolve any similar problems. Yet here we are running into the same problem again."

The Rev Ronnie Johnstone, the Church of Scotland representative on DSG, said the NDA gave a clear assurance about the level of funding for the site over the next three years.

He stated: "Having given that assurance, they can't come back and say that they didn't mean that and that they're now going to knock off £4.5 million here and another £4 million there."

Mr Johnstone added: "Forward planning at sites like Dounreay demands certainty and constancy of funding.

"We have told the NDA that by keeping this group onside and informed, they could use us to help them in their negotiations with Government. Instead we read in the papers that which we should have been informed about."

Scrabster Harbour Trust manager Sandy Mackie said he would be concerned if the NDA was to seek efficiency savings on an annual basis.

Local Highland councillor David Flear said that DSRL is facing a double whammy as it has to make efficiency savings of three per cent while inflation is running well above that rate.

The NDA's Caithness-based contract manager John Lawes said it had been directed by the Government to seek three per cent efficiency savings at all NDA sites.

Mr Lawes said: "The NDA can understand how that is seen as a cut but that is not the full story.

"If the site does all the work it plans within the funding, it will earn a £2 million fee."

Mr Lawes added that DSRL, along with its counterparts elsewhere, can bid for a share of the pot of money allocated but unspent from last year's UK-wide programme.

He said the current issue is different from the previous funding wrangle.

Explained Mr Lawes: "On the last occasion there was a crisis within the NDA in that we didn't have the money across the board.

"That is not the case this time where we are delivering savings to the taxpayer as a result of pressure on us from the Government."

Mr Lawes denied his agency kept DSG in the dark, pointing out that it could not defer the announcement about efficiency savings to coincide with the group's next quarterly meeting.

He believed similar savings would be sought next year and the year after that in line with Government targets.

Mr Lawes said DSRL has already proved that it could keep its clean-up programme on track for less than had been budgeted.

He stressed his office is doing all it can to ensure the efficiency savings are realistic and can be achieved at Dounreay.

Dounreay site project manager Brad Smith said the NDA announcement will not lead to job losses though it would result in work being deferred.

Mr Smith, however, sent a warning shot across the NDA's bows. "We can't continue with this funding model year on year," he said. "It would be very difficult for any business to achieve these savings on an ongoing basis."

Meanwhile, DSG heard that preparations are continuing for the major new intermediate-level waste storage plant earmarked for Dounreay.

Mr Lawes said the NDA is seeking Treasury approval next month for the completion of the design of the £100 million plant, which is due to be built by 2013.

iain-grant@ukf.net

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---