Babcock, the UK's largest nuclear site management, engineering
and support services organisation, has committed to implementing
the Nuclear Skills Passport (NSP) across its activities in the UK,
supporting the National Skills Academy for Nuclear in the launch of
the scheme.
Babcock's Managing Director Nuclear, Roger Hardy, sealed the
agreement in a meeting today with the National Skills Academy
Nuclear's chief executive Jean Llewellyn, when he signed the NSP
Company Charter.
With a workforce of some 3,500 skilled employees in the civil
nuclear sector operating at all levels across tiers 1, 2 and 3, and
with quality and safety paramount in every aspect of its work;
staff training and development, and skills management, are a high
priority for Babcock.
The company, which runs five UK nuclear licensed sites with
capabilities spanning the full lifecycle from design and build,
through operation and maintenance, to decommissioning and
remediation, has an unrivalled pool of Suitably Qualified and
Experienced Personnel (SQEP) resource covering a diverse range of
science, management and engineering disciplines.
The eagerly awaited Nuclear Skills Passport is now being
implemented across the nuclear industry. The system has strong
industry support, which has been demonstrated by the specification
of the NSP system by Skills Academy member organisations as highly
desirable in tenders.
Babcock was among the seven original participants in the NSP
pilot scheme in 2010, and is one of the first to sign the NSP
Company Charter.
The Nuclear Skills Passport is essentially a system offering
nuclear organisations instant secure web access to information on
the nuclear skills base, providing a detailed overview of the
training completed by their workforce and, with permission, also by
contracting organisations.
For contractors it provides a simple, highly secure means of
supporting the demonstration of SQEP and skills excellence within a
company's workforce. It also aids transferability of its staff from
one nuclear site to another, or from contract to contract, through
the implementation of industry-agreed and cross-site recognised
training standards. Specifically designed to meet the requirements
of the nuclear sector, the NSP is set to become an increasingly
important key differentiator in contractor selection.
On signing the NSP Company Charter today, Roger Hardy said:
"Babcock sees the Nuclear Skills Passport system as a business
imperative for all our operations throughout the UK, and we wish to
be proactive in supporting its implementation across the nuclear
industry.
"We place a very high value on the skill and quality of our
workforce, and this system enables us to demonstrate this simply
and effectively with ready access to records of our people's
specific training and qualifications. A further key benefit will be
to aid cost-effective mobility of our people around different
sites, without having to complete repeat training for each site.
For the industry as a whole, we believe it will focus attention on
up-skilling current workforce, encourage investment in staff
training and development, and will contribute to developing and
retaining the UK nuclear skills base."
Jean Llewellyn said: "Babcock's commitment, as one of the
largest specialist nuclear support services organisations in the
UK, is really important for the Skills Academy and clearly
underlines the impact and value of the Nuclear Skills Passport in
driving up standards across the whole UK nuclear industry.
"The Nuclear Skills Passport has been in planning for over three
years. The system has been designed in consultation with nuclear
employers at every stage, ensuring it meets the unique requirements
of the nuclear industry, and is inclusive of all the different
subsectors. The system will revolutionise the evidencing of nuclear
skills and is key to the implementation of nuclear industry
standards. I would urge any organisation that is operating in, or
wishes to operate in, the nuclear sector to get involved today by
signing up to the Nuclear Skills Passport."