Dounreay consolidates key site services
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is strengthening its capacity to deliver the closure of the site in 2022-25 by changing the way some essential services are delivered.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is strengthening its capacity to deliver the closure of the site in 2022-25 by changing the way some essential services are delivered.
Faced with a national shortage of key skills and a finite programme of work to complete, DSRL is consolidating the resources at its disposal by bringing in-house some functions previously delivered by sub-contractors.
Staff currently employed by Johnson Controls and BNS will transfer to DSRL. This will enhance DSRL’s ability to manage teams as they move between the different projects needed to complete the site closure. It also consolidates skills needed to ensure the maintenance of key plant.
“We reviewed our requirements across a number of contracts in light of national shortages of some key skills and came to the conclusion that, in the case of facilities management and reactor support services, it made sense to consolidate these in-house,” said Dyan Foss, deputy managing director of DSRL.
“Bringing these key skills under our own management gives us greater flexibility in how we deploy resources as the work programme evolves and eventually diminishes. It also reduces the cost of these services over the duration of the site closure contract.”
Facilities management and reactor support services at Dounreay were divested to the private sector in the 1990s by the then operator, state-owned UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Facilities management is currently provided under contract by Johnson Controls and reactor support services by BNS.
Plans are being made to enable 78 staff employed by BNS and 114 employed by Johnson Controls to transfer to DSRL on November 1, 2013, and April 1, 2014, respectively, under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations.
This will increase the size of the DSRL workforce to approximately 1000.
There is no increased liability for DSRL as a result of the TUPE transfers and a reduction in management overheads is expected to yield small savings over the duration of the site closure programme.
The combined annual value of both work areas is approximately £10m, in an overall site budget of approximately £150 million a year.
About two-thirds of this spend is with the supply chain and DSRL remains committed to providing a similar level of opportunity for the supply chain through competition for work for the remainder of the programme.