Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
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 Barrow-in-Furness Local Liaison committee (LLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of nuclear safety at BAE SYSTEMS Marine Limited (BAESM). These reports are distributed quarterly.
Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
This report will be put onto the HSE Website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm.The majority of sites inspected by HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), a part of the Health and Safety Executive, are licensed by NII under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (as amended). This report summarises the inspection and regulatory activities associated with the Barrow-in-Furness licensed site. In accordance with the HSE commitments to open government, this report will also be placed on the HSE Website.
Visits are made to the site for the purpose of undertaking routine plant and project inspections or attending formal meetings with site management or safety representatives. Routine inspections by NII are undertaken primarily to check compliance with licence conditions made under the Nuclear Installations Act, but are also made against provisions of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and regulations made under that Act such as the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. The site inspector visited site on:
Matters covered in this section are those being pursued with the site as part of ongoing site inspection activity and dialogue including project work and any generic or topical work relevant to all licensees.
As part of the routine inspection programme for the site, NII inspectors check compliance with licence conditions made under the Nuclear Installations Act and other regulations such as the Ionising Radiation Regulations 1999.
Inspectors from NII and the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator jointly inspected BAE Systems’ arrangements for:
Programmes of existing work to rationalise, modernise and improve the arrangements were examined and progress confirmed as satisfactory. Any new opportunities for improvement identified during the inspections, and the actions necessary to achieve them, were discussed and agreed with BAE Systems.
Inspectors from NII and the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator jointly inspected BAE Systems’ operational readiness for regulatory release of Astute Hold Point 5, which allows the rector core to be loaded into Astute. The regulatory team concluded that there were some outstanding actions that had to be completed before the permission could be granted to release the hold point. However, the regulators were content that these actions could progress under the normal course of due process and a regulatory judgement of BAE Systems’ readiness to proceed beyond the hold point would be made against the output from the Company’s own Operational Readiness Review process.
Matters involving NII’s response to incidents/events and to non-routine issues arising from operation of the site are covered in this section together with the outcome of any special/team inspections, investigations or audits.
The site inspector carried out two unannounced inspections during the period. On both occasions, he found examples of poor housekeeping onboard Astute that had resulted in the partial obstruction of designated evacuation routes. BAE Systems’ response was swift and the obstructions were soon removed. BAE Systems has since addressed the wider learning opportunities from these events and introduced additional measures to maintain appropriate standards of housekeeping onboard the submarines and to ensure that evacuation routes are not obstructed in future.
HMNII issues formal regulatory documents called licence instruments where these are called for under conditions attached to the nuclear site licence. Regulatory responsibility for authorising discharges and disposal of radioactive wastes from the sites lies with the Environment Agency.
Regulatory activity during the quarter was limited to the reported inspection activities and no formal regulatory documents were issued by NII for the Barrow-in-Furness site.
Barrow-in-Furness Site Inspector
HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS