Conclusion 3

Sellafield’s ability to deliver its largest projects on time and budget is still too variable. While there are some recent signs of improvement, Sellafield continues to repeat old mistakes. Four of the largest projects at Sellafield will collectively cost £1.15 billion more, and be delivered many years later than Sellafield Ltd expected in 2018, the last time this Committee examined Sellafield. Sellafield has a poor track record of delays and cost overruns, but the NDA reassured us in 2018 that cost forecasting is improving while the Department believed that the estimates of those costs have begun to stabilise. Nevertheless, there are some signs that a corner may finally have been turned. Sellafield Ltd is now working with a group of contractors in a different way, which places more emphasis on planning. As a result, most of the projects that have started more recently are being delivered in line with their business cases. However, one of Sellafield’s more recent major projects, the Replacement Analytical Project (RAP) has been managed very poorly indeed. When Sellafield Ltd ‘paused’ RAP last year, it was expected to cost up to £1 billion more than originally approved while new plutonium analysis capabilities would be at least 5 years late. Sellafield Ltd now believes that it can cut this gap to around one year and save money by converting a different building instead. However, £127 million spent on RAP will have been wasted. 4 recommendation As it carries out more detailed planning for future provision of Analytical Services, Sellafield Ltd should write to the Committee at a suitable point (but within six months) to update us on: • when it expects to be able to carry out the plutonium analysis the site will require (and what level of confidence it has in this estimate); • how much it expects to spend on the projects it has decided to carry out instead of the Replacement Analytical Project; and • what assessment it has made of the costs and value for money of mainta