The Sellafield site of British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) located in Cumbria contains two different types of nuclear installations. The four reactors located at Calder Hall together with their associated facilities are concerned with the generation of electricity and steam for consumption on the Sellafield site and feeding electricity into the National Grid. The second facility, comprising several hundred buildings is associated with the treatment and storage of radioactive wastes, and the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel arising from the UK nuclear power programme and from overseas reactors under commercial contracts negotiated by BNFL. The team inspection described in this report is concerned with the reprocessing and associated facilities which occupy the majority of the Sellafield site.
Located a few kilometres along the coast from Sellafield is the BNFL site at Drigg, which is used as a disposal site for low level radioactive waste. Whilst this site has a separate Nuclear Site Licence to Sellafield, in general it is managed as a part of the Sellafield site. Accordingly, Drigg was included within the scope of the team inspection. Throughout the remainder of this report any references to Sellafield should be interpreted as including the Drigg site.
Inspection of the reprocessing facilities at Sellafield for compliance with relevant regulatory requirements is carried out on a routine ongoing basis by a team of inspectors (currently 8) from HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) which is part of the Nuclear Directorate (ND) of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). During the first half of 1999, an apparent increase in the number of incidents occurring at Sellafield was detected by NII. Investigation of a number of these by NII revealed that inadequacies with BNFL's control and supervision of operations appeared to be one of the significant root causes. ND's Director and Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations therefore instructed that a team inspection should be carried out at Sellafield on the theme of the control and supervision of operations.
The terms of reference given to the inspection team were:
The inspection team comprised 11 Inspectors from NII and 2 from HSE's Field Operations Directorate (FOD), supported by administrative staff from NII, most of whom were on site for the full two weeks of the on-site inspection activities. A visit was also made to BNFL's headquarters at Risley by some members of the team for discussions on specific topics which involved a corporate input. The work of the team was coordinated by the NII's Nominated Site Inspector for Sellafield and Drigg, and managed by the Superintending Inspector with regulatory responsibility for operations at Sellafield and Drigg. In assembling the team, a mix of experienced staff was selected, some with site inspection experience and others with current specialist knowledge in the areas to be inspected. A conscious decision was taken to balance inspectors who were experienced in the inspection of nuclear facilities other than Sellafield with the team members whose routine function was inspection at Sellafield.
The inspection team was subdivided into three groups each of four members with the Nominated Site Inspector providing a linking function. One group focused on incidents, a second group focused on the control and supervision of work, and the third group focused on staffing and resources. From the outset, the team planned to seek views from all levels of staff. In the event, this was achieved. Representative staff from directors, management, supervisory and workplace levels were interviewed, Discussions were also held with Safety Representatives from both the BNFL Trade Union and Staff Side throughout the course of the inspection. It is noteworthy that the team found all of those who were interviewed to be cooperative, open and frank, which contributed greatly to the effectiveness of the inspection.
In order to make greatest use of the time available on site, a significant amount of effort was placed into the planning of the inspection prior to commencing the on-site phase of the inspection. Working within an overall framework for the inspection, an inspection plan was prepared. During this preparatory phase, information was requested from BNFL on incident statistics, staffing levels, current staff vacancies, organisation charts, details of safe systems of work schemes, and details of company and site initiatives (both safety and business related). Consideration of the written information provided in response to these requests was mainly carried out before or after the on-site work.
As in all of NII's inspection activities, the team worked on the basis of sampling BNFL's arrangements and activities. The team deliberately avoided drawing conclusions on the basis of single items of evidence, although for the sake of brevity this report in places may only cite one example. The composition of the team, together with the number of samples taken, provided an effective counterbalance to the risk of biased sampling. In addition, conclusions were arrived at by the groups on the basis of concensus.
Shortly before commencing the on-site activities, an opening meeting was held with BNFL. At this meeting HSE outlined the background leading to the team inspection and presented the terms of reference, objectives and proposed methodology. BNFL, represented by Senior Managers and Safety Representatives, acknowledged the importance of the inspection to the future of Sellafield. BNFL took the opportunity to outline a number of the safety improvement initiatives which had been introduced at the site. These initiatives will be discussed later in this report.
During the period of the inspection, the team received a number of presentations by BNFL, undertook prearranged interviews with various people and carried out inspections of operations (including some unannounced and out of normal working hours). In addition the team sought the views of individuals, including those of safety representatives. All of this work was coordinated in daily meetings. Daily meetings were also held with BNFL in order to provide an opportunity to request detailed information and to test the accuracy of the findings arising as the inspection progressed. A hot debrief was held at the end of the site inspection phase in order to share preliminary findings with BNFL and its staff.
Added to the HSE website on 18th February 2000