Commentary on Sections Chapter 1: Nuclear Decommissioning Section 13 and Schedule 3: Annual plans
85.Section 13 requires the NDA, for each financial year, to prepare a plan showing how it intends to carry out its functions during the year in question and to submit it to the Secretary of State and Scottish Ministers for approval. Scottish Ministers’ approval is needed in respect of responsibilities given to the NDA jointly with the Secretary of State under section 6. The plan will relate directly to the NDA’s strategy – i.e. the plan will set out the basis on which the NDA proposes to implement its strategy in the twelve months concerned.
86.Subsection (2) requires the plan to be submitted for approval not less than three months before the start of the financial year in question. Subsections (3) and (4) specify certain matters which the plan must cover in relation respectively to decommissioning and clean up and the operation of installations and facilities. Subsection (5) requires that the plan must also set out all the activities of significance that the NDA proposes to carry on during the year in question in relation to its other functions. Subsection (6) gives the Secretary of State power to direct the NDA to deal with other matters in its plan for any financial year. Subsection (7) ensures that in preparing its annual plan the NDA can anticipate it taking on responsibility for other sites, installations or facilities for which a designation is due to come into force in that year.
87.Schedule 3 deals with various matters relating to the preparation and revision of annual work plans, in particular as regards consultation with stakeholders, approval of plans by the Secretary of State, the publication of plans once approved, and their laying before Parliament and the Scottish Parliament by the Secretary of State and Scottish Ministers. The provisions are very similar to those in Schedule 2, including the requirement that the Secretary of State must consult Scottish Ministers on any proposals for sites in England and Wales relating to the non-processing treatment, storage or disposal of hazardous material that would have an effect on the management of hazardous material or availability of a site in England and Wales for the treatment, storage or disposal of hazardous material located in Scotland. The main difference between Schedule 3 and Schedule 2 is that, given that work plans will implement an approved strategy, paragraph 2(2) of the Schedule leaves open the possibility, in cases where a plan is revised in year, of the NDA only consulting those stakeholders directly affected by the changes proposed before submitting the revised plan for approval. As with Schedule 2, the method of consultation is left for the NDA to decide with its stakeholders.