January saw the NIA organise the best attended Decommissioning Working Group ever with over 100 people in attendance to hear a series of high profile presentations headlined by Ian Roxburgh, Chief Executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

In his keynote address to the group gathered at the Birchwood Centre in Warrington, Dr Roxburgh said that the predicted death of the industry was premature, and that the NDA has no business without the companies in the industry. Dr Roxburgh said that in all contracts safety will come first. Before going to the market the NDA will have a dialogue with contractors to set out how the contracts will be awarded. This will also take the politics out of the contract awarding process. He stated that the NDA will create jobs, not axe them, but he recognised that there will be job flows. Next year's life cycle baselines will be more professional and different in format. He said that building a matrix of stakeholder relationships and making named individuals in the NDA responsible for each stakeholder would be a priority. Dr Roxburgh concluded by saying that if he or any of his staff were becoming like an arrogant regulator he wanted to know about it.

The next presentation was given by Lawrie Haynes, Chief Executive of British Nuclear Group, who gave a highly informative presentation on the group's intention to meet the challenge of the NDA head on. They intend to carry out decommissioning faster, smarter and cheaper. To deliver this strategy they will aim to reduce the number of contractors they have a direct relationship with from 10,000 to 150.

Clive White, Business Group Director of NNC, said that tier 2 and 3 contractors should also welcome the creation of the NDA but recognise that they had to change as much as tier 1 contractors. Stephen White, Director of Business Strategy at UKAEA, set out UKAEA's strategy to become the contractor of choice under the NDA and their desire to work with partners to achieve this.

Jean-Paul Chatry, International Operations Director at EDF, delivered a highly entertaining presentation to give the participants an overview of experience gained from decommissioning in France. This was followed by presentations by Alan Smith of Jacobs Babtie, giving a tier 2 contractor's view, and John Spear of SMT Consulting, presenting the NIA supply chain report (see separate report in this issue of Industry Link).

The feedback from member companies attending this event was excellent. Participants found it informative and relevant to their work. The next meeting takes place in Newcastle in May.