This is a fundamentally different model that has been implemented and we've moved relatively rapidly from government-owned, government-operated to this new model. The systems that we have put in place are really mirroring the systems and processes used in other countries to monitor the performance of the contractor, specifically those used by the Department of Energy in the United States and, in the U.K., the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. They have a very similar set of issues and also a very similar set of contract approaches.
What we had embedded in the contract and embedded in our performance expectation was for the contractor to very quickly put in a system that's used to monitor the performance of their work. It's called an earned value management system. It's used throughout the world to manage very large, very complex, projects. It allows you, in a very systematic way, to monitor what work is actually being done, what does that work cost, is it behind schedule, is it above budget, below budget. It's a relatively complex system and one of the objectives that we established for the contractor day one was to get that system in place.
I think part of your question was how do we know. One of the things we just completed about two or three months ago was AECL brought in an independent auditor. That auditor organization—essentially, this is what they do—goes around the world and evaluates the performance of this earned value management system. They asked: is it embedded into the organization, and does CNL have the necessary procedures and processes?
I'm happy to report that they found that the system put into place at CNL is adequate. It identified areas for improvement, but we always expected it. I've done this work quite a bit in both the U.K. and at the Department of Energy. These systems probably take anywhere from three to five years to get fully embedded into the complex organization. We're well on our way.