Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Background

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is a non-departmental public body that has been created to oversee Britain's "nuclear legacy". It was established in April 2005 under the Energy Act 2004 to take strategic responsibility for the UK's nuclear legacy. Its core objective "is to ensure that the 20 civil public sector nuclear sites under its ownership are decommissioned and cleaned up safely, securely, cost effectively and in ways that protect the environment." [1]

The Board

• Sir Anthony Cleaver – Chairman. Ex-Chair of UKAEA.
• Nick Baldwin – Ex-Chief Executive of Powergen. He is Chair of the Defra/DTI, Advisory Board on Climate Change Projects Office; Chair of the Regional Energy Strategy Steering Group; and a member of the DTI Energy Group Advisory Board.
• Tony Cooper – Former chair of the Nuclear Industry Association.
• David Illingworth - President, Institute of Chartered Accountants from 2003 to 2004.
• Professor Roger Scott - Director and Professor of Nuclear Science, Scottish Universities. Professor Scott has undertaken occasional consultancy work for BAe Systems and Halcrow.
• Lyndon Stanton – Ex President and Chief Executive, Lyondell. Non Executive Director of the Environment Agency
• Primrose Stark – Ex-British Rail and Railway Industry Training Council from 1997 to 2003

PR team

To spin their case, the NDA has brought in high profile PR experts who are used to fighting controversial schemes. The NDA has hired Jon Phillips, the ex-head of communications for Heathrow Airport to be its head of Comms. Phillips led BAA's successful campaign for a fifth terminal at Heathrow and is reported to be earning £70,000 to push the pro-nuclear spin. He is heading a ten person team based in London.

The NDA also has a PR team based in Cumbria headed by Bill Hamilton ex- director at Grayling and public affairs director at Safeway, and recently group public affairs director for Transport for London.[2]

The Revolving Door

The NDA's senior executives include senior figures from within the nuclear industry including BNFL or those who were closely involved from a regulatory perspective:

• Richard Mrowicki - Head of Stakeholder Relations - ex-Deputy Director, Liabilities Management Unit, DTI and ex-BNFL where he was involved in stakeholder relations. [3] [4]

• Richard Waite - The Engineering Director - Ex-BAe Systems. Before he joined the defence industry in 1998, Waite spent 18 years working in the civil nuclear in dustry, including Director of Projects for Nuclear Electric, the organisation that procured, constructed and ran the UK's nuclear power plants. [5]

• David Hayes- Strategy and Commercial Director. Ex-DTI. Hayes was "at the forefront of work to establish the NDA". Been heavily involved in nuclear issues, including reviewing BNFL's corporate strategy and revised MOX plans as well as the privatisation of British Energy.

• Richard Griffin - was Nuclear Coal and Liabilities Unit at the DTI who helpled set up the NDA. [6]

• Lawrence Williams - Nuclear Safety and Security Director - Ex- Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations and Director of the Health and Safety Executive’s Nuclear Safety Directorate.

• Mark Leggett- Ex-John Brown, Bechtel and Aker Kvaerner.

Bell Pottinger

The NDA has hired Bell Pottinger Communications to run its PR led by Chime Communications division chairman Kevin Murray. Also involved are Bell Pottinger Public Affairs director Tim Walker and Corporate & Financial director Mark Herbert. The account is said to be worth £100,000.[7]

In November / December 2005, Private Eye revealed that Bell Pottinger was receiving £8,000 a month to give strategic advice to the NDA. The Eye noted: " Why is the Bell Pottinger PR firm passing on potted biographies of MPs focusing on their supposed attitude to nuclear power to the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA)? The NDA’s job, after all, is to clean up the mess left by the old atomic generation, not to promote new nuclear power stations."

The Eye noted: "The files certainly give the impression that Bell Pottinger thinks the NDA is part of the cosy nuclear club rather than a body charged with sorting out some of the worst problems created by the industry. In its bidding document Bell Pottinger emphasised that its chairman Kevin Murray “worked on the BNFL account during a tumultuous four-year period�. It also said Bell Pottinger director Tim Walker was a “former special adviser to Jack Cunningham� when he was a very pro-nuclear MP and spent “more than a decade closely involved in the politics of the nuclear industry�. [8]

Using the Freedom of Information Act, NuclearSpin has obtained a copy of Bell Pottinger's pitch to the NDA. It underlines the extent of the company's involvement with the nuclear industry. It states that Bell Pottinger's consultants "have worked in a variety of capacities with the nuclear industry. These include:

• Providing strategic advice and support for the Chairman and Chief Executive of BNFL including crisis management
• Advising BNFL on corporate and financial communications
• Developing day-to-day public affairs programmes for BNFL and the BNIF
• Working with Parliamentarians with interests in the nuclear industry
• Monitoring and tracking nuclear issues ranging from Parliamentary committees to public enquiries
• Directly managing the in-house communications for the UKAEA and AEA Technology through privatisation
• Briefing and rehearsing industry executives appearing before Select Committees." ^[9]

The NDA's briefing paper for potential PR consultants boasts that the "NDA is not unique in being an organisation committed to open and transparent engagement with stakeholders, but it may well be the first organisationthat has such objectives built in to its statutory requirements". Nevertheless, Bell Pottinger's successful pitch includes:

• "Advising on the handling of particular announcements… identifying the issues and bear traps in advance, advising on messaging, media strategy and tactics, questions and answers"
• "Advising on an appropriate contact programme ie who are the journalists that should be courted, what are their issues, how best to handle them"
• "Providing off the record information". ^[10]

Under Investigation

In December 2005, the Commons Trade and Industry Committee announced an inquiry into the work of the NDA and UKAEA as both Non-Departmental Public Bodies are sponsored by the DTI. The Committee will investigate:

• The remit and activities of the NDA and UKAEA;
• The compatibility of current plans for the NDA and UKAEA with any increased reliance on nuclear power generation;
• The NDA and UKAEA's performance and accountability.

[11]

References

• 1. Ravi Chandiramani (2005) Lib Dem Election Chief Nets Tfl Job, PR Week, 12 August, p1.

• 2. Ravi Chandiramani (2005) Nuclear Clean-Up Body Brings In Bell Pottinger, PR Week, 8 July, p2.

• ^ Bell Pottinger Communications, in FOIA release from NDA to NuclearSpin, February 2006.

Related Articles

• Jonathan Leake and Dan Box, "When PR goes nuclear", New Statesman, May 27, 2005