Simplification and review of Radiation Protection directives including Basic Safety Standards (BSS) and Outside Workers directives
Government department lead
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have overall UK government responsibility for negotiation of the proposed new consolidated EU Basic Safety Standards Directive. HSE is working closely with DECC, other government departments and officials from the devolved administrations, to prepare the UK negotiating strategy. A cross government group has been convened to ensure a consistent approach across UK government. The BSS Project Team at HSE, brings together policy, legal, and technical experts, and is working very closely with cross government colleagues on this important work.
Background
The European Commission (EC) intends to bring forward a formal proposal for a new Basic Safety Standards Directive that will bring together and consolidate five existing EURATOM Directives, with a Recommendation also being taken into account. The EC has been working closely on the recast with a Working Party (WP) of its Article 31 (A31) group of Scientific Experts.
The scientific review of the basis for the Directive has a number of influences:
- The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) approved new recommendations in April 2007 that revise their Publication 60 (which provides the basis for the current BSS). These recommendations have been published and can be found via the ICRP Website
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have their own Basic Safety Standards which are currently under review. View a copy of draft 3.0
- The European Atomic Energy Community is co-sponsoring the IAEA BSS review, with the aim of ensuring harmonisation between the IAEA and Euratom BSS documents, so that they are fully consistent.
- The A31 Group of Experts have completed the draft text and their Opinion. These documents are available on the Article 31 group’s webpages. The EC will now use its internal processes to issue a formal proposal for a Directive, which member states will then need to consider. It is expected that the formal proposal will be brought forward towards the end of 2010.
Progress on developing the UK response
- Three stakeholder working groups have been set up covering: Occupational; Medical; and Public and Environmental Exposures, and these have identified a number of issues;
- The draft EC text is currently being analysed, from both the legal and the technical perspective, to identify changes;
- Officials are working with economists to quantify the economic impact of issues that have been identified by stakeholders, some of which may require alterations to current UK legislation.
Next steps
The HSE team are keen to engage UK stakeholders to ensure that a breadth of interested parties views inform the impact assessment and development of the UK influencing strategy and negotiating position. Interested parties should contact the HSE Policy team (see below).
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