The government said the move was finalised after ownership transferred from the Cavendish Fluor Partnership.
This follows an announcement made in July 2018 and marks a new approach to managing the UK’s 13 Magnox sites – 10 former Magnox nuclear power stations, two nuclear research sites and a hydroelectric plant.
Magnox chief executive officer Gwen Parry-Jones said being an NDA subsidiary gives Magnox more opportunities to work closely as part of the NDA group, share ideas and take a more flexible approach to decommissioning the UK’s first generation of nuclear power stations.
The NDA is a government body set up in 2004 specifically to deal with the nuclear legacy.
In February 2018 the Public Accounts Committee said the NDA had completely failed in both the procurement and management of a contract to clean up the UK’s Magnox nuclear reactor and research sites.
The report said this disrupted an important component of vital nuclear decommissioning work and cost the taxpayer upwards of £122m.
The £6.2bn contract — one of the largest awarded by the UK government — was to dismantle 12 first-generation Magnox nuclear sites. It was awarded to Cavendish Fluor Partnership, a joint venture between UK-based Babcock International and Fluor of the US.
