from Sunday Herald, 18 May 2014
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is suffering a severe and worsening shortage of skilled nuclear engineers that could threaten the safety of nuclear weapons and submarines on the Clyde.
Official figures released by the MoD reveal that one in ten nuclear safety posts are now vacant - more than in each of the last two years. The MoD’s own safety watchdog has warned that the staffing crisis poses “a significant threat to the safe delivery of the defence nuclear programme”.
The revelations have been condemned as “utterly shocking” by the SNP’s Westminster defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP. “To find out there are so many vacancies in critical nuclear positions is totally unacceptable,” he told the Sunday Herald.
“This is extremely dangerous, unsustainable and lays bare the reality of the risks of the shambolic MoD cuts agenda. The MoD must immediately explain, in parliament and to the Scottish Government, what it is doing to rectify this and when.”
Robertson has been told by the UK defence minister, Philip Dunne MP, that the MoD was short of 165 suitably qualified and experienced nuclear personnel on 31 March 2014. This compares to shortfalls of 133 in March 2013 and 153 in March 2012.
Most of the 2014 vacancies - 67 – are at Abbey Wood near Bristol, from where the MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support organisation helps oversee Britain’s nuclear weapons and submarine fleet. There are a further 60 vacancies relating to nuclear submarine activities, and 26 vacancies at the Faslane and Coulport nuclear bases near in Argyll (see table below).
Across all its conventional and nuclear land, sea and air operations the MoD has disclosed that it had 97 vacancies for 1,321 posts it categorised as “safety critical” on 1 April 2014. In its annual safety report for 2012-13, it said its target was to get these vacancies down below 50.
The report described the overall shortage of suitably qualified and experience staff as “the top departmental safety concern”. Although the MoD insists that none of vacancies defined as “safety critical” are currently in nuclear operations, it has repeatedly been warned by its own advisers that nuclear safety is at risk.
The Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator, the MoD’s internal watchdog, has described shortages of skilled nuclear staff as “the principal threat to safety in the defence nuclear programme in the medium term”. Its report for 2012-13 warned of future problems because qualified staff were “spread thinly in places”.
The report pointed that that there was an “ageing demographic” issue because nuclear engineers were approaching retirement and not enough were being recruited and trained in their place. There was also increasing competition from the civil nuclear power industry, which is seeking to expand in England and Wales, it said.
Staff shortages were also highlighted in a heavily censored 2009 “risk register” released by the MoD under freedom of information law. “There is a risk that the Royal Navy will not have sufficient suitably qualified and experienced personnel to be able to support the manning requirement of the submarine fleet,” it said.
“Inability to recruit, retail and develop sufficient nuclear and submarine design qualified personnel will result in an inability to support the defence nuclear programme.”
John Large, an independent nuclear engineer who has advised governments, argued the latest MoD figures underestimated the seriousness of the staff shortages. The redefinition of some jobs suggested that the MoD had “moved the goalposts”, he said.
“The nuclear safety implications arising from this could be onerous,” he continued. He pointed out that nuclear engineers would face increasing challenges as submarines aged and developed unexpected problems.
“They will have to think, respond and act out of the box as and when an incident or adverse event occurs. This could include managing the consequences, possibly radiological and explosive, for situations that had not been foreseen.”
According to Large, when the nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Tireless, suffered a reactor breach in the Mediterranean in May 2000, the actions of an experienced engineering officer prevented a bad situation from getting worse. A less skilled officer might not have done the same, he suggested.
“The final safeguard of nuclear safety is having in place experienced engineering officers who are able to act independently and correctly respond to situations that have not been previously thought through,” Large said.
“These new figures clearly indicate that the cadre of experienced engineering officers, particularly those crewing the nuclear powered and armed submarines, has depleted below what some might believe to be an acceptable reserve strength.”
The MoD insisted, however, that the vacancies had not impacted on its ability to safety deliver the government’s military nuclear programme. The Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator had agreed that current safety had not been compromised, it pointed out.
No nuclear submarines are sent to sea without the “required personnel” on board, said an MoD spokeswoman. “We can be clear that none of the current nuclear vacancies are designated as safety critical posts,” she added.
“These vacancies are carefully managed to ensure that safety and operational capability is never compromised.”
But John Ainslie, coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament disagreed. “If the plumbing in your house needs repairing then you should employ a suitably qualified plumber,” he said.
“You would expect that this principle would apply to nuclear submarines and nuclear weapons, but apparently not. The MoD has a one-in-ten shortfall in key staff, yet they are ignoring this and continuing at full speed with their plans to replace Trident and to increase the number of nuclear submarines based in Scotland."
The growing shortage of nuclear safety staff at the Ministry of Defence
Nuclear suitably qualified and experienced personnel
31/03/12 31/03/13 31/03/14
Submarine vacancies 56 51 60
HMNB Clyde vacancies 45 23 26
Abbey Wood HQ 29 49 67
Other 23 10 12
all vacancies 153 133 165
percentage of all posts 9.2% 8.4% 10.2%
source: Ministry of Defence
It is notable that absolutely no progress has made since the 2009 MOD safety report which highlighted the lack of suitably qualified and experienced staff needed to support MOD nuclear programmes
http://milconrandc.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/mod-publishes-report-on-2009-safety.html
This shows that the MODs nuclear safety Regulators lack the teeth to ensure MOD management can run MODs nuclear programmes safely
Posted by: Fred Dawson | 19 May 2014 at 08:58 AM