Magnox Electric Ltd

Chapelcross Site Signs Skills Agreement

30 April 2008

Chapelcross has signed an agreement with four key partners which will be instrumental in developing a workforce with the right skills to deliver the future decommissioning work at the site.

On Friday 28 March, a revision of the original Memorandum of Understanding entered into in May 2007, was officially signed between Magnox North Chapelcross, Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway, The National Skills Academy for Nuclear (NSAN), Dumfries and Galloway College, and new partners, Liverpool University.

The agreement will support continued decommissioning at the site and will help the site to develop the right people with the right kind of skills to carry out decommissioning work in the years to come.

The site has been in transition from an operational organisation following the end of electricity generation in 2004, to a decommissioning organisation to execute the start up of large scale defuelling and decommissioning. Essential to a successful transition is the development of skills of those required to run a generating site to those of one undergoing large scale defuelling and decommissioning.

Magnox North Chapelcross is committed to making the best use of the wealth of local knowledge & experience by increasing the skills of their people to meet this changing focus.

Site Director, Dave Wilson, said: “This is a great opportunity for the site and the local community. I believe that this partnership is an excellent way of developing the right kind of people to deliver the site’s lifetime plan at the same time as providing the local area with a pool of people with the type of skills the nuclear industry needs.
“Our people are our greatest asset and I see effective leadership and skills development as keys to decommissioning the Chapelcross in a safe, environmentally acceptable and cost effective manner”.

A considerable amount of work to provide training and development needs within the workforce has already taken place since the original MOU was signed back in May 2007. This includes a programme of development through the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) involving around 100 team leaders and managers on site. Another 100 members of the workforce have been involved in pilot programmes for Decommissioning Scottish Vocational Qualifications and Institute of Occupational Safety & Health Training.

As part of the agreement, a new Career Planning Unit will be developed and set up at Chapelcross, resourced by the Partner Agencies and supported by the Site Trade Unions. Following on from this, in the short term two new key projects will be undertaken which are a Training Needs Analysis of the current workforce to identify and close skill gaps, and implementation of the Windmills Programme delivered by Liverpool University and based on learning from Dounreay Decommissioning Site.

Helen Wakefield, Windmills Head of Learning & Development at Liverpool University said “The Windmills Programme is a proven, self selection process that provides employees who volunteer to take part, a clearly structured framework for taking control of their career and life. We are very much looking forward to working with Chapelcross.”