Government Complicity
Being government owned gives BNFL a tremendous advantage when it comes to operating in an entirely competitive commercial market place, operating in a closed market as it does though gives BNFL advantages that no other corporation operating legally in the UK can ever hope to match.
Legislation, that would prosecute other firms as a matter of course is regularly ignored by BNFL when its errant managers choose to do so purely at the behest of individuals hiding behind a corporate rulebook that is only a fiction of the manual that actually conducts BNFL’s business and operations.
Having been run originally as a military establishment Sellafield has inherited many of the authoritarian and dictatorial attitudes of those former managers, who have now almost to a man, retired.
The wisdom and intelligence of these managers was factor that could once be depended upon by BNFL, with many of these managers having been pilots and decorated officers in the Second World War who would not countenance any acts of stupidity by anyone whatsoever.
Honourable men though have been replaced with career-orientated individuals who are fixated with career advancement within a company already top heavy with promoted mistakes, mistakes who answer only to the level of authority above them and are impervious to any criticism from below.
This chain of command reaches to the very pinnacle of Executive authority at BNFL, eventually reaching out to governmental authority at ministerial level before ultimately ending up (At the feet of the president!) at number ten Downing Street.
Problems can be seen to arise should any one of the links in this chain of command prove to be acting in anything other than a selfless manner, any untruth generated by a level of management that is accepted by the higher levels of authority will become accepted as fact by a company that can feel safe in the knowledge that there is no one individual actually in control of BNFL’s actions, due to all of the regulatory authorities being ultimately owned by the British government.
(A case that proves this to be true resulted from a breach of compliance at the Sellafield complex, where one experienced employee refused to commit illegal acts and attempted to halt a potentially serous incident that could have had repercussions outside UK territorial waters had the operation in question gone wrong and radioactive contamination escaped to atmosphere.
Taking his concerns to the highest levels of the BNFL executives through the chain of command became a succession of arguments for the employee, from the moment he expressed his valid concerns to the Shift Manager who was responsible for the operation being conducted (Illegally without the benefit of either a risk assessment, or operating instruction…) he was subjected to a wall of silence that climbed all the way to the top of the BNFL corporate ladder.
It was not only BNFL management that adopted a wall of silence to hide behind in the face of the concerned employees documented warnings, the man’s own Member of Parliament Dr. J. Cunningham refused to return telephone calls and even hid in the Houses of Commons chambers when the man attempted to lobby his apparently BNFL controlled MP, on three consecutive days.
Failing to elicit any response from the MP nicknamed ‘Junket’at large, and other less savoury appellations locally, drove the man to Downing St where he repeatedly attempted to alert the Prime Minister to the dangerous and illegal practices being employed as routine maintenance at the Sellafield plant, only to be arrested twice and detained for twenty six hours in a Police cell before being bound over for a period of twelve months for his troubles…
The now disgraced employee was subjected to surveillance and detained for questioning by airport security when he subsequently left the UK. On his eventual return to his home he was again placed under surveillance, with UKAEA policemen and officers from Cumbria Constabulary being dispatched to apply pressure on the man who has simply done his duty to both his out of control company and his under BNFL authority, community…)
This ability to manipulate the Police and dictate governmental policy has implications that cross international borders when it is understood that BNFL have added the giant American Westinghouse Corporation to its assets, giving BNFL the role of dominant Superpower in the Global nuclear industry.
This commercial Superpower can now be seen as a company that can expect unqualified support from a Government that is acting in the role of junior partner and not master, therefore, BNFL has arrived at the situation whereby the board of executives at BNFL controls the actions of the very governmental departments that are appointed to act as watchdogs, with any feedback to the Ministries responsible being manufactured to satisfy commercial targets and not representative of the true state of affairs to be found within a company who’s operations have consistently proven to be an embarrassment to the UK Government.
This governmental reluctance to tackle the all powerful BNFL Mandarins is not only a fault of the UK government, due to the political situation in Northern Ireland the Irish Government in Dublin appears helpless in its attempts to reduce the incidences of childhood cancers and leukaemia’s on Irelands western seaboard, where Sellafield’s effluent streams continue to pollute the shores of a foreign country with the full co-operation and prior knowledge of the British government.