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UKAEA Awards £90 Million Contract (Biggest Ever) To RWE Nukem
UKAEA has awarded a ten-year contract, worth upwards of £90 million, to RWE NUKEM for radiological protection services across all its sites. The contract - extendable to 15 years depending on performance - is one of the largest single contracts ever let by UKAEA and was awarded after a competitive tendering exercise.

The contract covers the full range of radiological protection services including health physics monitoring, radiological protection advice and an Approved Dosimetry Service that includes monitoring of personal radiation film badges. It covers UKAEA's decommissioning sites at Dounreay, Caithness, Windscale, Cumbria, Harwell, Oxfordshire and Winfrith, Dorset, together with some services at the fusion research centre at Culham, also in Oxfordshire

Paul White, UKAEA's Finance Director, commented:  "A review of radiological protection services across UKAEA concluded that a single contract across all of our sites was the best way to ensure a consistent standard of service and to maximise value for money for the tax-payer.

"In our industry where effective radiation safety is essential these  services will be key to the success of our site restoration programmes. We have therefore adopted a new partnering approach for this contract  - UKAEA and RWE NUKEM working together to provide the best quality support services to our sites."

Welcoming the announcement, Mike Down, Managing Director of RWE NUKEM, said: "We are delighted to be awarded this contract. It builds on our existing health physics services for UKAEA and reflects the hard work and dedication of our health physics staff. The duration of the contract ensures long term stability and the opportunity to develop a genuine team approach focusing on continuous improvement and sharing information across the sites so that our staff can provide the best service to UKAEA."

UKAEA is responsible for managing the decommissioning of the nuclear reactors and other radioactive facilities used for the UK's nuclear research and development programme in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner. The objective is to restore the sites for conventional use. It is also responsible for the UK's input to the European fusion research programme at its Culham site and for maximising the income from the land and buildings at its sites.

UKAEA has made significant progress:

• Six research reactors have been completely removed and decommissioning is in progress on a further five reactors.

• Detailed plans have been developed for decommissioning each UKAEA site

• Modern facilities are in place for managing the radioactive waste from decommissioning.

• UKAEA has 2,500 staff of whom over 570 are officers in the UKAEA Constabulary which protects UKAEA, BNFL and URENCO sites.

• UKAEA's annual operating expenditure (2002/3) was £368 million.  Some 78% (£285 million) was external expenditure, of which £205 million was let in contracts to the private sector.

• RWE NUKEM Limited is the UK member of the international RWE NUKEM Group, a division of RWE solutions. The company has over 900 staff based at major offices at Risley, Dounreay, Harwell, Sellafield and Winfrith.

• RWE NUKEM provides an extensive range of nuclear services from small consulting contracts to turnkey design and build.