Contents

• Inspections
• Routine matters
• Non routine matters
• Regulatory activity

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Foreword

This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public.  It is for distribution to members of the AWE Local Liaison Committee (LLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Aldermaston and Burghfield.  These reports are distributed quarterly and are available also from the Internet at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm.  Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members.  Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-4103.

Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS

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Introduction

A total of 23 NII inspectors visited the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites during the quarter. In particular a number of senior NII inspectors including the Deputy Chief Inspector (DCI) attended a “behaviours” workshop with AWE and the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator.  Also the Deputy Chief Inspector carried out a routine site inspection visit in September.  There were visits from other HSE inspectors in relation to conventional safety and explosives and visits by Nuclear Directorate administrative support staff. 

NII inspections were made on the following dates:

July	9, 10,11, 12, 13, 17, 23, 30, and 31
August	6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, and 30
September	6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 24, 25, 26, and 27

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Routine matters

Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999.  In this period routine inspections, against the nuclear site licence conditions, were carried out in a variety of buildings/facilities, and included:

• Incidents on the Site – 6 inspections were carried out, of which 5 were considered to be adequate, and 1 had potential improvements identified.
• Duly Authorised and other Suitably Qualified and Experienced Persons – of 3 inspections, 2 were considered to be adequate, and 1 had potential improvements identified.
• Control and Supervision of Operations – of the 2 inspections, 1 was considered to be adequate, and 1 had potential improvements identified.
• Examination, Inspection, Maintenance and Testing – of the 8 inspections, 1 was considered to be good, 5 were considered to be adequate, 1 had potential improvements identified, 1 had potentially significant improvements identified, and an inspection of the corporate arrangements found them to be adequate.
• Control of Organisational Change - of the 4 inspections, 2 were considered to be adequate, but 2 inspections of the corporate arrangement identified potential improvements.
• Documents, Records, Authorities and Certificates - of the 3 inspections, 1 was considered to be adequate, and 2 had potential improvements identified.
• Training - of the 4 inspections, 3 facilities were considered to be adequate, but the corporate arrangements had potential improvements identified.
• Nuclear Safety Committee – the corporate arrangements were inspected and found to be adequate.
• Periodic Review – 1 inspection had potential improvements identified.
• Quality Assurance – the corporate arrangements were inspected and found to be adequate.
• Operating Records – 3 inspections were all found to be adequate.
• Safety Mechanisms, Devices and Circuits – the corporate arrangements were inspected and had potential improvements identified.

Where potential improvements were identified, during the above inspections, these were brought to the attention of the licensee and these are now being actively pursued.  In some cases discussions with the licensee have been underway for some time.

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Non-routine matters

Periodic review of safety process

NII inspectors continued to discuss with AWE the resolution of issues identified during assessment of recent submissions addressing Periodic Review of Safety (PRS) for facilities on both the Aldermaston & Burghfield sites.  NII issued an interim response to AWE in respect of Burghfield PRS.

Freedom of information

In the period being reported on, NII has received and responded to two FOI requests for information related to regulation of AWE.  Dealing with these FOI requests placed a significant additional workload on NII’s inspectors with the result that the number of inspections of front line activities at the AWE sites has had to be reduced.

Adverse weather

NII worked closely with other agencies and AWE on the consequences of the adverse weather in July.  Operations on site and the availability of services and facilities have been closely monitored in respect of worker and public safety.

Multi-stakeholder workshop

A two day “Interactions” workshop was held involving AWE senior management, representatives from HSE's Nuclear Directorate and personnel from the Ministry of Defence to identify the issues which had the potential to cause each organisation difficulty in maintaining efficient working relationships.  A number of actions, aimed at tackling these issues, were taken from the workshop and are being worked on.  It is planned that a similar event will be held at some stage in the future to review progress.

Team inspection of LC14 (safety case) compliance arrangements

An LC14 team inspection of licence An LC14 team inspection of licence compliance arrangements for safety cases was undertaken jointly with the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator.   Overall, NII and DNSR are encouraged by the progress that has been made by AWE in addressing a number of LC14 issues.  The inspection highlighted a number of areas where additional improvements should be sought by AWE, in particular to meet the expectations of SC.1 in HSE’s Safety Assessment Principles for Nuclear Facilities.  However, we are encouraged by AWE’s commitment to these improvements in its LC14 arrangements.

Visit of HM Deputy Chief Inspector

Mr R C Gray visited both Burghfield and Aldermaston over a three day period as part of a routine “benchmarking” process.  In his opinion the material condition of the facilities visited showed some improvement from the previous visit about one year earlier and there was evidence that AWE was undertaking investment in some of the older facilities to improve the building fabric and installed systems.

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Regulatory activity

As part of its regulation under the nuclear licences NII issues formal regulatory documents called Licence Instruments.  These utilise the primary licence condition powers of ‘Consent’, ‘Approval’, ‘Direction’, ‘Specification’, ‘Notification’ and ‘Agreement’ as well as those powers derived from the licensee’s arrangements.  No Licence Instruments were issued during the period of this report.