Delivery of Operational Safety Cases For HMNB Clyde

The Government White Paper published in December 2006 set out the United Kingdom (UK) Government's intention to retain a minimum assured independent strategic nuclear deterrent for the foreseeable future. This will be fulfilled by the Dreadnought SSBN as the replacement for the V-Class.

Operationally, the Dreadnought Nuclear Powered Warship (NPW) will provide the 'replacement' capability for the V-Class NPW rather than providing a 'new' capability. Consequently, the expected mission and functional requirements can be assumed to be essentially the same as those of the V-Class NPW. However, the reactor design in Dreadnought is Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) 3 as opposed to PWR2 in V-Class - the change in design of the reactor and its associated systems means that Safety Justifications (SJs) for Dreadnought operations at HMNB(C) may place different requirements to V-Class.

Consequently, there is a requirement to establish, and maintain across the project timeframe, a suitably qualified and experienced technical team and deliver a suite of Operational Safety Cases (OSCs) for His Majesty's Naval Base (Clyde) (HMNB(C)) to Relevant Good Practice (RGP) and within the timescales imposed by the HMNB(C) Dreadnought Readiness Date.

The suite of OSCs will justify NPW activities undertaken at the HMNB(C) Authorised Site, initially to justify Dreadnought activities and enable HMNB(C) to meet the Dreadnought Readiness Date, and ultimately to update the OSCs to justify Astute and Vanguard Class activities so that the HMNB(C) safety cases for all NPW activities meet RGP.