nuclear-news

UK nuclear decommissioning executives rorted the system

Nuclear plant bosses forced to pay back inappropriate expense claims including a £714 taxi bill for a CAT, Mail Online 9 Sept 13

• Executives at Nuclear Management Partners consortium widely criticised
• They were brought in to help decommission part of the Sellafield plant
  
• Claims also included trip to US Masters and £719 on good from Amazon
• One boss demanded £714 cab fare for themselves ‘and the cat’
  
• Audit of claims from 2008 to 2012 leads to thousands being handed back Taxpayer-paid executives running the Sellafield nuclear power plant billed £714 to chauffeur-drive a cat, expense claims revealed today.

• Bosses at consortium Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) also used the perk to pay for flights to the US Masters golf tournament and Amazon purchases submitted without receipts.NMP were brought in to decommission a nuclear plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, but senior staff have now been forced to hand back thousands of pounds after an audit of their claims between 2008 and 2012. 
• From more than 606 expense documents it emerged £236,781 of claims were requested without a proper description, £30,557 worth were purely for personal expenditure and £42,711 should not have been claimed at all.

  Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland in Cumbria, which contains Sellafield told City AM: ‘A workforce that is being asked to accept many changes – including pay restraint – will have many questions.

  ‘Taxis for cats and flights to the US Masters simply beggars belief.’

  Anger: Local Labour MP Jamie Reed says that the cat claim ‘beggars belief’

  NNP said in a statement its management id not ‘understand’ a ‘complicated and bureaucratic’ expenses systems.

  It came the day after it was revealed the same senior managers have pocketed more than £6million in bonuses over the last three years, despite a series of failings.

  Executives seconded to Sellafield Ltd to have received bonuses ranging from £2 million to £2.5 million since 2009.

  The taxpayer-funded bonuses for senior staff at the Sellafield site were paid for using funds from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the public non-departmental body which agreed the terms of the contract under which Sellafield Ltd operates.

  Energy Minister Michael Fallon revealed that a total of £6.6 million was paid out in bonuses.

  In the financial year 2009/10, NMP executives received £1,999,192; in 2010/11 the figure was £2,451,269 and in 2011/12 the executive bonus pot totalled £2,148,035………

  The bonuses were disclosed in answer to a parliamentary question from Margaret Ritchie, former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

  The South Down MP, who is also the SDLP’s shadow spokewoman on energy, said: ‘The Government and the NDA have serious questions to answer about this.

  ‘It is unacceptable for this amount of public money to be paid in bonuses to a private consortium whose management of the decommissioning process at Sellafield has been so appalling.

  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415837/Nuclear-plant-bosses-forced-pay-thousands-dodgy-expense-claims-including-714-taxi-CAT.html#ixzz2eWCJQvpc

September 10, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK