The Sellafield infrastructure partnership has become the first in the nuclear industry to gain a national inclusion accolade.

The National Centre for Diversity has recognised the Programme and Project Partners at Sellafield as bringing together the best of each partner organisation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion across its team.

The Programme and Project Partners, managing director, Duncan Elliott, said: “This recognition means the world to everyone in the partnership, and to those supporting us, who are personally invested in making The Programme and Project Partners a great place to be, for everyone.

“As a programme made up of people from multiple organisations with a huge range of backgrounds, specialisms and experiences – we need every single person to feel like they can bring their whole self to work, and perform at their best, knowing that they are valued, respected and part of something really exciting.

“This is a step towards that, but it is only the first step, and we’ll keep putting in the same energy and effort to improve for the next 16 years and beyond.”

The accreditation is recognised as the national equality standard providing organisations with a bespoke approach to embedding equality, diversity, inclusion and fairness in all it does.

The Programme and Project Partnership has a team of around 1,500 people drawn from the 5 partner organisations – Sellafield Ltd, KBR, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Jacobs and Altrad Babcock – and is 4 years into a 20-year contract term. The team is set to increase to 1,900 people over the next year.

The partnership has been working with the National Centre for Diversity for a year to review its policies, behaviours, and work practices to become a fully inclusive environment for people who work there.

Since starting this journey, they have engaged team members working across the programme, listened to and acted on feedback, introduced training, and behavioural coaching and adapted ways of working.

Solat Chaudhry, chief executive of the National Centre for Diversity, said: “Being the first programme of its kind to achieve the Investors in Diversity Award should send a positive message to all of the partnership’s stakeholders, internal and external, and everyone who’s played a part in getting to this point should be congratulated for their input and success of the partnership.

“The team has demonstrated its commitment to improving levels of fairness, respect, equity, diversity, inclusion and engagement.

“What has been most impressive is the speed and quality of work undertaken over a short period of time, which is being noticed by employees across the partnership.”