This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Appointments to CoRWM
19/11/2003
Appointments to the Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management (CoRWM) were confirmed today. The
Committee has been established to review options for
the long-term management of radioactive waste.
Katharine Bryan was appointed in July
to chair CoRWM and to help select the remaining
Members.
The members are listed below, with
brief biographical details, including other public
appointments held (either current or which have ended in
2003), as well as any political activity undertaken in the
last five years:
·Mary Allan, Ross-shire -Lecturer,SchoolofBusiness, The North Highland College, no other
public appointment held, no political activity within the
last five years;
·Professor David Ball,Norfolk- Professor of Risk Management,MiddlesexUniversity,no other public appointment held, no
political activity within the last five years;
·Fred Barker,West Yorkshire- nuclear policy analyst, Member Radioactive Waste
Management Advisory Committee (appointed by DEFRA, £5,000
per year remuneration),no political activity within the last
five years;
·Dr Keith Baverstock, Finland - former Head
of Radiation Protection Division, World Health
Organisation,
no other public appointment held, no
political activity within the last five years;
·Professor Andrew Blowers OBE, Bedfordshire - Professor of Social Sciences at the
Open University, Member, Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee (appointed by DEFRA, £5,000 a year
remuneration), Board Member, UK Nirex Ltd (not a
Ministerial appointment), obtained office as a local
councillor within the last 5 years and canvassed on behalf
of a party (Labour) or helped at elections;
·Professor Brian Drummond Clark, Aberdeen -
former Professor of Environmental Management &
Planning, Board Member of the Scottish Environmental
Protection Agency (SEPA) (appointed by the Scottish
Ministers receives £5,909 per year remuneration); Chair,
SEPA North Board (not a Ministerial appointment),
no political activity within the last
five years;
·Dr Wynne Davies, Buckinghamshire - Vice President, Group Health,
Safety and Environment, Amersham plc, Member, Radioactive
Waste Management Advisory Committee (appointed by DEFRA
receives £3-4000 per year remuneration), Nuclear Safety
Advisory Committee (appointed by Health & Safety
Commission),no political activity within the last
five years;
·Dr Mark Dutton, Cheshire - physicist and
nuclear decommissioning expert, NNC,
no other public appointment held, no
political activity within the last five years;
·Dr Gordon MacKerron, Brighton - economist
and energy policy consultant, Associate Director, NERA,
no other public appointment held, no
political activity within the last five years;
·Professor Lynda Warren, Powys - zoologist and Emeritus Professor of
Environmental Law at the University of Wales, Board Member,
Environment Agency (appointed by DEFRA, £25,000 a year
remuneration), Member, Countryside Council for Wales
(appointed by National Assembly for Wales, £11,000 a year
remuneration), Member, Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee (appointed by DEFRA, £5,000 a year
remuneration),
no political activity within the last
five years;
·Jennifer Watson, London - Commissioner,
Women's National Commission and former Chair, Nirex
Independent Transparency Panel, Deputy Chair, Equal
Opportunities Commission (appointed by Dept for Education
& Skills £16,835 remuneration per year) canvassed on
behalf of a party (Labour) or helped at elections;
and
·Pete Wilkinson, Suffolk - Director of Wilkinson Environmental
Consultancy, former Chair of Greenpeace and co-founder of
Friends of the Earth (UK),no other public appointment held,stood as a candidate for local councillor, MP, MEP,
spoke on behalf of a party (Labour) or candidate, canvassed
on behalf of a party (Labour) or helped at
elections.
CoRWM's terms of reference require it, among other
things, to aim to make its recommendations in 2005. The
Committee is to prepare a work programme; to agree this
with allUKadministrations at an early stage; to meet every six
months; and to make an annual progress report which will be
placed before the Scottish Parliament.
CoRWM's review of options will be carried out in
an open, transparent and inclusive manner, to inspire
public confidence in the way in which it works.
The CoRWM appointments are part-time.
The Chair, Katharine Bryan, who will probably spend about
75 days per year on the work, will receive a daily rate of
£450 for her duties. She is also Chair of the Joint Nature
Conservation Committee (appointed by DEFRA), for which she
receives £34,765 a year.
Other Members will receive a daily rate of £300 and
will probably spend around 50 days a year on CoRWM
business. One Member will be appointed Deputy Chair
and will receive a daily rate of £380.
All Members will also be paid reasonable
costs of travel, meals and accommodation while attending
meetings or visits organised by the Committee. Over 400
applications were received.
Two members of the Committee, Mary Allan and
Brian Drummond Clarke are resident in
Scotland
The UK currently has over 20,000 tonnes of solid,
long-lived radioactive waste in storage, awaiting a
decision on its long-term future, and this will rise to
half a million tonnes over the next century as nuclear
reactors and other facilities come to the end of their
lives. CoRWM will review the options for safely managing
this waste and recommend a strategy to the Scottish
Executive, the UK Government and the devolved
administrations forWalesandNorthern Ireland.
Following a consultation exercise
Managing Radioactive WasteSafely which ran from September
2001 to March 2002, Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for
Environment and Rural Development, announced on 29 July
2002 that the Scottish Executive, the UK Government and
the other devolved administrations would set up a new
independent body to oversee the review.
Ministers have emphasised that the new body must win
public confidence and operate in an open, transparent and
inclusive manner. The review must engage with
interested stakeholders and the public.
The first step of the review will be to set
the framework for debate by establishing broad agreement on
the wastes to be considered, the range of management
options for each of them, and the criteria against which
these options should be assessed.
The second step will be to assess options
including commissioning any new research required.
The final step would draw up recommendations
for Ministers to consider.
This is a further step in the programme for dealing
with theUK's 'nuclear legacy'. CoRWM will have the task of
recommending to Ministers how intermediate and high-level
radioactive wastes are best managed in the longer
term. On
4 July 2002the UK Government published its White Paper
Managing the nuclear legacy, including its plans to set up a new
authority to manage theUK's publicly owned civil nuclear liabilities.
These include wastes that are currently the responsibility
of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which owns Chapelcross and
Hunterston A and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA),
which operates Dounreay.
The draft Nuclear Sites and Radioactive
Substances Bill was published on
24 June 2003. This provides for the establishment of the
new authority - the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)
- which will take responsibility for the nuclear clean-up
programme.
These Ministerial Public Appointments were made in
accordance with the Code of Practice issued by the Office
of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA). All
candidates were asked to fill in a questionnaire on
political activity and we have indicated which categories
they ticked. Unless otherwise indicated, Members
ticked the "none of the above activities" category