ONR’s Chair, Mark McAllister, said: “I’m delighted to publish our Strategy 2020-25, and I thank everyone who has shared their feedback to help us shape it.
“A key role of the ONR Board, and a specific personal responsibility of mine, is to set the strategic direction for the organisation to ensure the efficient and effective regulation of the nuclear industry. But we don’t do this in isolation. Developing our new Strategy has been a real collaborative effort. I believe this final document shows our clear intent to deliver dutyholder interventions that will be even more strategic, risk-based, and informed by expertise than before.
“We’re also committed to extending our influence across sectors and borders, seeking feedback about our impact. We want to be an exemplar of transparency and openness retaining public trust and confidence - we already listen and act on your feedback but we will go further in our engagement with stakeholders. We also want to ensure the nuclear industry, government and the public consider us value for money.”
Of note, we’ve updated our mission to more sharply focus on our core purpose. It is now ‘to protect society by securing safe nuclear operations’.
And our vision for the next five years is to be a modern, transparent regulator delivering trusted outcomes and value. This is appropriate for a six year old organisation, that is not changing direction, but rather maturing and adjusting to our changing environment.
ONR’s Chief Executive, Adriènne Kelbie, said: “We engaged extensively with stakeholders for over a year, from early informal involvement, numerous pre-consultation events with the nuclear industry, nuclear and local interest groups, other regulators, government colleagues, and of course our staff and Board, ending with a final formal consultation a few months ago.
“We received hundreds of helpful comments and suggestions - the vast majority of which were constructive, positive about our track record and supportive of our proposed way forward.
“We can now proudly take forward a strong, coherent strategy that is built on collaboration, sharpening our focus to 2025 as we continue our work to keep the public safe.”
Although, our final strategy has not changed significantly from the version on which we consulted, feedback (outlined in our consultation response document) helped us bring greater focus on the following elements:
- Recognition and consideration of the level of change happening in the nuclear sector;
- Our organisational commitment to the environment and net zero carbon targets;
- A clearer statement of our regulatory enforcement powers; and
- Demonstrating an appreciation of the range of stakeholders we engage with at local and national level.
We have also published our Corporate Plan. The Corporate Plan sets out our new priorities and objectives for the year ahead including recovery post-Covid-19, while maintaining the delivery of our core regulatory functions and holding industry to account on behalf of the public.