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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 Sizewell A and B Stakeholders Group (SSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Sizewell B. 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 SSG meetings and will respond to questions raised there by members of the SSG.

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Inspections

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) made inspections at Sizewell B on the following dates during the quarter:

• 5 - 6 February 2009
• 18 - 20 February 2009
• 3 - 5 March 2009
• 23 - 26 March 2009

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Routine matters

Inspections at Site: Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:

1. the conditions attached by HSE/NII to the nuclear site licence;
2. the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 and
3. 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 licensees/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 station covered:

• Incidents on the site.
• Staff training, qualifications and experience.
• Emergency preparedness.
• Modifications to plant, equipment and safety cases.
• Radioactive waste management.
• Radiological protection.
• Organisational Changes.

In general the arrangements made and implemented by the station in response to safety requirements were deemed to be adequate in the areas inspected. However, where improvements were considered necessary, satisfactory commitments to address the issues were made by or are being sought from the licensee, and the site inspector will monitor progress during future visits. Where necessary, formal regulatory enforcement action will be taken to ensure that appropriate remedial measures are implemented to reasonably practicable timescales.

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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 response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements.

During the current reporting period there was a reactor trip, making a total of four over this operating cycle. The stations' operational performance has been good with no more than three trips per annum since 2000 and an average of less than one per annum in 2003 to 2007. The station has investigated the four trips individually and collectively. Component level changes were made to reduce the potential for reoccurrence for each event. The station has also introduced a trip reduction program and incorporated it within a systematic review of plant systems initiated last year. Potential reliability improvements have been identified and prioritised and their implementation program starts shortly. We inspected the trip reduction program and its outputs during the first phase of application and judge that it should result in improvements to secondary systems' reliability and fewer challenges to the reactor primary systems and trip logic.

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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 requires 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.

No Licence Instruments or enforcement notices were issued to the licensee during the quarter.

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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.

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