Hinkley Point A site report - Q1 2009

Hinkley point site stakeholder group quarterly report for 1 January 2009 to 31 March 2009

Inspection
Routine Matters
Non Routine Matters
Regulatory Activity

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 Hinkley Point Site Stakeholder Group and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hinkley Point A Decommissioning Site. These reports are distributed quarterly and are also available on the HSE's web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate usually attend Site Stakeholder Group meetings and will respond to any questions raised there by the members of the group.

Inspections

Two site inspection visits was undertaken this quarter:

3-5 February 2009
23, 26 February 2009

Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) Specialist Inspectors also made visits to site during the quarter on the following dates:

24, 25 March 2009

Routine matters

Inspections at Site

Inspections at Hinkley Point A are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:

(i) the conditions attached by HSE/NII to the nuclear site licence;
(ii) the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 and
(iii) regulations made under the HSWA (for example the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999).

This entails monitoring licensee's actions on the site in relation to incidents, operations, maintenance, projects, modifications, safety case changes and any other matters which may affect safety. The licensee/operators are required to make and implement adequate arrangements under the conditions attached to the licence in order to ensure legal compliance. Inspections seek to judge both the adequacy of these arrangements and their implementation. In this period routine inspections of (site/station) covered:

Duly Authorised and other suitably qualified and experienced persons - LC 12
Control of Organisational Change - LC 36
Examination, Inspection Maintenance and Testing - LC 28

Nuclear Safety

Licence Condition planned inspections - A team of specialist inspectors visited site on the 24, 25 March 2009 to inspect the Licensees LC28 arrangements as applied to civil structures. The arrangements were found to be adequate. The inspection noted that the Licensee was currently improving the process.

Non-routine matters

Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee's/operators response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements. Matters of particular note considered during the current period include the following.

An incident occurred on 2nd October 2008 where a de-cabling team accidentally cut into a live cable that was thought to be dead. No-one was injured. This event was investigated and as part of the enforcement process, the Licensee and Contractor attended HSE Bootle Headquarters on 10th March 2009 to present their improvements to process. HMNII considered the proposed improvements to process as adequate.

Regulatory activity

Under Health and Safety legislation NII Site Inspectors, and other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions, HSE/NII issues regulatory documents, which either permission an activity or require some form of action to be taken; these are collectively termed Licence Instruments (LI). In addition inspectors may issue enforcement notices to secure improvements to safety.

The only regulatory activity concerned the electrical incident and is reported above.

Licence Instruments (Site Licence Sc. 89)

There were no Licence Instruments issued in the period covered by this report.

Changes to HSE's nuclear directorate

In early 2008 the Government initiated a review into the UK's nuclear safety regulatory regime, led by Dr Tim Stone. The recommendations and the UK's Government response were published at the end of January 2009. One of the major recommendations is the decision by Government to establish the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Nuclear Directorate (ND) as a Statutory Corporation under the auspices of the HSE.

The creation of this new, autonomous body, (which will continue to incorporate the Office for Civil Nuclear Security and the UK Safeguards Office) will facilitate a more sustainable approach to regulating nuclear safety and security within a rapidly changing global nuclear environment and recruitment of high calibre of staff within a hardening market place for highly specialised skills.

The restructuring will not change the substance or standards of regulation or compromise the independence of the nuclear regulatory body, and will not affect the decisions it takes or the international obligations the Government requires it to meet.

Enabling work continues for the initial scoping and planning of the work-streams and programmes necessary for the Statutory Corporation to come into being from April 2010. This project has required the temporary enhancement of ND's senior management capability in order to deliver existing regulatory work and to create the Statutory Corporation.