Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the Government target is for the procurement of goods and services from the local Sellafield Ltd supply chain; how this target is monitored and enforced; and whether there are sanctions that would apply were this target not to be met.

Sellafield is considered a ‘Contracting Authority’ under the EU Procurement Directives and as such they have to apply the Public Procurement Regulations in all their procurements, ensuring fair, equitable and transparent treatment for all suppliers whether local or not. The NDA have required Sellafield to consider SMEs, socio economic and the UK Growth agenda within their procurement strategies, which in turn should support smaller local suppliers.

The SME target for the NDA Estate as a whole has been agreed with Government as 31% by 2020 and it is expected that each Site Licence Company (SLC), including Sellafield contribute to that target. The target is made up of both direct (SLC spend) and indirect (major supplier) spend. The target is broken up over the next financial years as follows:

15/16 21.5 – 23%

16/17 23.5 – 25%

17/18 25.5 – 29%

18/19 29.0 – 31%

The NDA monitors the target with Sellafield reporting their direct spend with SMEs and NDA collect the data centrally from the major suppliers within the Estate. In turn, SME target is monitored and supported centrally by a range of systems including meetings with Lord Bourne, the DECC SME Minister, and various Cabinet Office meetings where NDA is an active participant. The NDA Executive and its Board are also updated regularly on performance against the SME target as well as wider discussions across the Estate. The NDA 2016-2019 Business Plan (currently out for consultation, www.nda.gov.uk) details the SME targets for each SLC for 2016, with the expectation that this support continues during the life of the Plan.