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Sellafield nuclear safety and security director to leave.

Multiple safety and cybersecurity failings at nuclear waste site were revealed by Guardian last month

Guardian,   Anna Isaac and Alex LawsonTue 9 Jan 2024

The top director responsible for safety and security at Sellafield is to leave the vast nuclear waste dump in north-west England, it has emerged.

Mark Neate, the Sellafield environment, safety and security director, is to leave the organisation later this year.

Neate reports directly to Euan Hutton, the interim chief executive of Sellafield, the nuclear waste and decommissioning site in Cumbria, which is also the world’s largest store of plutonium.

Multiple safety and cybersecurity failings, as well as claims of a “toxic” working culture, were revealed in Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian investigation into Sellafield, last month.

The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, said the reports were “deeply concerning” and wrote to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the state-owned body which ultimately runs Sellafield, demanding a “full explanation”.

In his response last month, the NDA chief executive, David Peattie, said there had been “necessary changes to the leadership, governance, and risk management of cyber” and responsibility for its cyber function had been moved. A new head of cybersecurity was due to take up the role this month, which Peattie said would ensure “sustained focus and leadership on this matter”.

Sellafield said Neate had responsibility for cybersecurity operations until January 2023, when control was shifted to report to its chief information officer.

It declined to say whether Neate’s departure was related to cybersecurity and safety failings at the site and said that he made the decision to leave last autumn……………………………………………………………….

Sellafield has “more work to do” to reduce safety incidents, according to its annual accounts for the year to March 2023 which were published in late December. The accounts showed that annual operating costs at the taxpayer-funded site climbed by £170m to £2.5bn.

Last financial year the company pleaded guilty to a prosecution brought by the Office for Nuclear Regulation under health and safety regulations after an employee was injured falling from a scaffold ladder while carrying out repair work. The company was fined £400,000 and ordered to pay £29,210 in costs as well as a surcharge of £190.  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/08/sellafield-nuclear-safety-and-security-director-to-leave

January 11, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK