Restarting more work - Sellafield Ltd
How we're agreeing which new work to start on the Sellafield site due to Covid-19.
Which new work to start
There are careful controls for each and every new work package we are restarting, regardless of whether they’re one-off pieces of work or projects which we’ll be restarting and continuing to do unless the virus re-escalates and we need to stop it again.
We have already prioritised the sort of work we should be doing first, starting with the most pressing high hazard and risk reduction work and the major projects which support this, plus opportunities to ‘lead and learn’.
This work has been agreed by the executive and is already starting. As the types of work we’re considering broadens, we are putting in place a more practical and manageable process to control and oversee the amount of work we are safely restarting.
The first check point will be the appropriate duty holder – there are more than 20 of these business leaders covering the site and each will have the authority to determine requests to restart work in their areas.
If the duty holder decides the work should restart, then smaller work packages which can be done in standard working hours involving fewer than 10 people or using people already working on site will be discussed with local union safety representatives and, when appropriate, can be agreed and restart.
Larger pieces of work which the duty holder wants to progress involving more than 10 people and needing to bring additional people back into work will need broader approval.
Members of our Constraints Cell will review the request and filter out unnecessary or lower priority work. Where appropriate, it will then be submitted to the Operations Cell for approval.
It means that every new request for work will have been filtered and checked at 3 key points before starting, with union engagement throughout the process.
Any increase in the overall number of people coming into work will be logged and carefully tracked, as well as intelligence on the demand on business infrastructure.
It’s a rigorous opportunity for scrutiny and challenge, meeting our objective to safely maximise our productivity while doing the work which matters the most.
Keeping us safe
There will be broad rules and boundaries that those approving the restart of new work will consider – these are our principles and constraints designed to manage how much work we can safely get done and control who should come back to the workplace rather than working remotely.
The constraints are also designed to protect our ability to do the key work at the core of our safe, secure and environmental protection mission – the minimum ‘Stage 1 and 2’ work which we have successfully preserved and delivered throughout the crisis.
Below are the current key driving principles and constraints guiding who can and should come back to work.
These will be reviewed as the Covid-19 crisis progresses, taking into account government advice and our local situation.
A constraints dashboard will be continuously updated to capture the detail, and the Operations Cell can decide to trigger a slow down or stop activity at any time if circumstances require.
Our principles and constraints
- wherever possible, people should continue to work from home
- the maximum number of people on the Sellafield site at any given time should not exceed 3,500 (aligning to the total number of car parking spaces)
- social distancing will be strictly enforced wherever feasible, including 2 metre spacing between people working in offices. This will limit the capacity of our office estate to less than half of ‘normal’ levels
- physical interactions between different teams should be limited wherever feasible. People working on construction sites will be isolated from the rest of the Sellafield workforce to minimise the risk of spread
- work needs to be able to be stopped again quickly if the virus re-escalates
As we build our confidence through our lead and learn approach, we will challenge and consider broadening our constraints so that we safely get as much work done as we can.
Prioritising what we do next
We have already shared the first 11 Phase 3 Work Packages which are restarting and more work will be put forward for approval over the coming weeks and months.
We expect to have around 3,000 people back working on the site by mid-June. This is still far fewer people than the more than 8,000 people we typically had on site before the virus.
The key consideration in deciding what work to restart is whether the work delivers our environmental remediation mission in a BAT (using Best Available Techniques) and ALARP (where risk is as low as reasonably practicable) manner and demonstrates value for money.
For every piece of new work we plan to restart, we will analyse our ability to do it safely, the business need and urgency, the benefits it will deliver in reducing future risk, the number of people required to do that work, how long it will take (including whether it’s a one-off job or continual work) and the cost implications of not doing it.
Engaging with people on coming back in
Our simple objective is ‘no surprises’.
Every single person coming back to work should through their line managers be sighted beforehand on the likelihood that they’ll be needed back in, have a conversation about what that means for them individually, receive details beforehand on when and where they are needed and have the appropriate supporting information, such as our Return to Work pack.
No one should be returning to the workplace because they assume everyone else is.
Your workplace may be open again, but unless you’ve been asked to return to it, don’t assume it’s open for you.
We will all be continuing to work differently for many months to come.