Archiving and Records Management Commercial Partnership Agreement for the operation and management of the National Nuclear Archive

Descriptions

Archiving and Records Management Commercial Partnership Agreement for the operation and management of the National Nuclear Archive. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), on behalf of NDA Archives Limited (NDAAL), invite interested parties to participate in a market engagement exercise to explore the procurement of a replacement Commercial Partnership Agreement. The services of the Commercial Partnership Agreement may include but not be limited to: onsite archiving and records management, project services, facilities management (FM) and building management, security and management of the overall programme of works., Throughout its history, the nuclear industry in the UK has created vast quantities of records. The NDAAL and all the nuclear sites that it owns and manages, continue to do so., As nuclear decommissioning in the UK is funded by the taxpayer, the vast bulk of these records is owned by the public, which makes them public records and confers on NDA and the organisations in the NDA group an obligation to manage them in accordance with the Public Records Act. The Act includes strict rules for retention and care., After many years of planning, in 2015 NDA created NDA Archives Ltd whose task it was to collect, inventorise and manage the records of the civil nuclear industry, using a new, purpose-built archive facility: “Nucleus, the Nuclear and Caithness Archives”, located in Wick, Caithness. Its purpose is not only compliance with the Public Records Act, but also to play a leading role in dealing with the technical and logistical challenges faced by NDA., The Caithness Archive is colocated with the NDA archive in Nucleus., A “rules and tools” workstream was set up to define the legal and statutory requirements, and to deliver the tools needed to enable compliance. An NDA Records Retention Database has been created, and IMP06 “Managing NDA Information – Requirements” was published. This workstream is part of a wider programme that deals also with digital preservation, intellectual property and copyright issues., The work of NDAAL has been outsourced under a Commercial Partnership Agreement, with a term of 5+1+1 years (ending 30th June 2022). The scope of the Agreement comprises:, -Operation of “Nucleus” (both the nuclear and the Caithness archives) with a permanent workforce to receive records from organisations in the NDA group, carry out records and archive management tasks, and provide access to NDA records to End Users and the public, -FM and building management, -Security (physical, personnel, information), -A programme of gathering, sifting, cataloguing, storing and maintaining all inactive records in the NDA estate. Over a quarter of a million boxes of records have been identified for processing., This procurement project will ensure the continued operation of Nucleus from 1st July 2022, with an enhanced role for the new Commercial Partner., The duration of the new contract is likely to be 5 years with options to extend for 2 subsequent years., Feedback and input are sought from the market to: develop greater understanding on the market and the factors affecting it, understand interest in this opportunity, and affirm the sourcing strategy