Introduction

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was established on 19 July 1954, under the 1954 Atomic Energy Authority Act.

UKAEA has to complete its national nuclear mission, whilst reducing as quickly as possible the annual cost to UK taxpayers by:

• caring for and, at the appropriate time, safely dismantling active facilities no longer in use;

• disposing of radioactive waste in an environmentally acceptable way;

• ensuring the security of nuclear facilities and materials;

• making best use of current UKAEA assets, including our sites and live active facilities, whilst seeking disposal whenever appropriate;

• carrying out fusion research;

• always ensuring that the programme is carried out at lowest economic cost consistent with safety and environmental requirements and acceptable financial risks.

UKAEA owns 5 sites in the UK. Three of these (Dounreay, Harwell and Winfrith) are nuclear licensed sites. Two (Culham and Risley) do not contain facilities which require to be licensed. UKAEA also leases an enclave of BNFL's site at Windscale. UKAEA acts as a planning and procurement organisation. It plans the long term decommissioning programme to minimise discounted costs, and buys in the services of independent contractors to undertake specific decommissioning tasks, wherever possible on a competitive basis. Only some 23% of UKAEA's annual expenditure is now on in-house activities, but a number of specialist operations remain in-house: in particular, running the nuclear fuel cycle plants at the Dounreay site, and the waste plants at Dounreay, Harwell and Winfrith; carrying out the UK's research programme in nuclear fusion, at the Culham site; and policing nuclear sites and protecting materials, not only for the UKAEA itself, but also for BNFL and URENCO.

Achievements in 1996/97

In 1996/97, UKAEA achievements included:

• the separation of AEA Technology plc, formerly a major part of the UKAEA. AEA Technology has since been successfully privatised;

• maintaining safety standards during this period of substantial re-organisation and change;

• significant progress in the decommissioning of a number of major facilities for example, completing the defuelling of the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at Dounreay, and clearing of the turbine hall; completing the removal of the heat exchangers from the Windscale AGR and their emplacement in the Drigg low level waste facility; decontamination of the spent fuel pond of the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor at Winfrith;

• improved performance in a number of key business areas for example, increasing the percentage of work put out to competition; improving the accuracy of financial forecasts;

• launch of the Harwell International Business Centre for Science and Technology to exploit the Harwell site;

• approval of major projects in the Fusion area extension of the international JET project at Culham to 1999; construction of a novel Fusion device (the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak, MAST) as part of the UK programme;

Quality gaining ISO9000 certification for the majority of the organisation. A number of related programmes have also been established (e.g. benchmarking, continuous improvement); and

Investors in People UKAEA has made the commitment to work towards IiP accreditation. Particular achievements have been a new training strategy; and the introduction of personal development plans as an integral part of the annual staff appraisal process.

Plans for 1997/98

UKAEA's plans for 1997/98 include:

• continued progress in decommissioning: for example, at Dounreay, construction of the PFR sodium disposal plant and a new low level liquid effluent plant, full operation of the cementation plant and completion of the design for the new cementation plant store extension; at Windscale, placing the contract for the dismantling of Pile 1 and encapsulation of the waste; at Winfrith, decommissioning and dismantling the Nestor and Dimple reactors;

• sale of the Risley site;

• winning new overseas contracts for commercial fuel cycle services at Dounreay;

• gaining ISO9000 certification for the remaining units of the organisation; and

• gaining Investors in People accreditation.

Key Performance Targets

Each year the UKAEA Board chooses a suite of top-level performance measures, and sets a target range for each measure. Wherever possible, the target range is set on the basis of continuous improvement, with the lower target above the level of achievement in the preceding financial year and the upper target chosen to be very challenging but potentially achievable. The measures in the suite vary from year to year, reflecting the Board's judgement of where improvement is most needed. The table focuses on the suite of measures set for 1996/97; not all were top-level measures in earlier or subsequent years. These top-level measures are supported by a range of performance indicators at Directorate level.

Key Performance Targets
	1994/95		1995/96		1996/97		1997/98
Key Measure	Set	Achieved	Set	Achieved	Set	Achieved	Set
Liabilities Management Ratio *	Not Set	Not Measured	Not Set	1.02	1.01-.07	1.15	1.05-1.20
Number of Safety, Environmental and Security Incidents	Not Set	24	24-18	19	18-14	14	Not set (New safety index adopted)
Financial Forecasting % Error	Not Set	16	Not	5	4-2	1.3	1.2-1.0
% of total UKAEA spend competed	Not Set	Not Measured	Not Set	47	49-57	49	50 - 55
Employee Attitude Index **	Not Set	7	Not Set	Not Measured	8-18	31	Not Set
* The liabilities Management Ratio is UKAEA's "bottom line". It is a measure of efficiency with which UKAEA is reducing its nuclear liabilities. Any ratio >1 means that UKAEA has succeeded in reducing, even in 6% discounted terms the liabilities by more than has been spent on doing so. ** The Empoyee Attitude Index measures staff perceptions of UKAEA and its management. It is calculated by averaging employee reponses to six key questions.