§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 5 April 2000,Official Report, columns 486-87W, on AWE Aldermaston, against what criteria the parent companies were judged to ensure that they achieved full compliance on safety performance. [118561]
§ Mr. Spellar[holding answer 10 April 2000]: The assessments of the competing consortiums' bids were made on the basis of a safety criterion with 28 components of which 20 were classed as critical. Compliance was required against each of the critical components in order for the bid to be processed further. The components are as shown—(C=Critical; NC=Non-critical):
Policy, Strategy and General
- To maintain, and where appropriate improve, an effective policy and strategy for ensuring high health safety and environmental performance (c).
- Achievement of applicable standards and maintenance of company standards (c).
- Track Record (c).
- Co-operation with Authority's safety bodies (c).
- Safety QA and documentation (c).
- Provision of safety services (c).
Measuring Safety Performance
- An effective safety performance measurement system to cover all significant and appropriate Environment Safety and Health matters on and off site (c).
- Effective accident and incident investigation, analysis and reporting (c).
Planning, Implementing and Maintaining Safety
- Five year plan (c).
- Maintenance and improvement of an effective safety management system and improvement of performance as appropriate (c).
- Provision of management prospectus (c).
- Maintenance of site as safe place to be, safe working, justification of operations and facilities, peer review (c).
- Control of hazardous materials, including criticality safety and explosives, and control of all wastes (c).
- Nuclear weapon safety (c).
- Provision of emergency response (c).
- Restriction of access to designated premises (c).
- Effective planning and implementation (NC).
Organisation for implementing Policy
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- Senior personnel (c).
- The maintenance of effective communications on safety matters and provision of information (c).
- Competence (c).
- Safety culture (NC).
- Management Control (NC).
- Employee involvement (in Environment Safety and Health activity) (NC).
- Regulatory interface (NC).
Audit, Review, Action tracking, Verification and Essential Services
- Effective corrective action including planning and verification of close out (c).
- An effective audit system with benchmarking (NC).
- Collective review of safety performance information and analysis for trends and causes (NC).
- Measures to maintain essential services (NC).