Skip to content

Insights into nuclear oversight

Date released
14 March 2024
Request number
202402061
Release of information under
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Information requested

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the nuclear regulation activities conducted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation. Specifically, I am interested in obtaining the following:

Description:

Information regarding the criteria and procedures used by the Office for Nuclear Regulation in regulating and overseeing nuclear activities within the United Kingdom.

Additional Details:

  1. Any guidelines, manuals, or documents outlining the regulatory framework and standards used in nuclear regulation.
  2. Reports or summaries of inspections, audits, or assessments conducted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation on nuclear facilities or activities.
  3. Records of enforcement actions taken by the Office for Nuclear Regulation against non-compliant entities or individuals.
  4. Any correspondence or communications between the Office for Nuclear Regulation and regulated entities regarding compliance issues or regulatory matters.
  5. Any information related to incidents, accidents, or near misses involving nuclear facilities or activities, including investigations and follow-up actions.

Information released

We confirm that under s.1 of the FOIA, we hold the information relevant to your request. Please see below for our response.

For parts 1 to 3 of your request, we are refusing these under s.21 of the FOIA, information reasonable accessible to the applicant by other means.

Part 1 of your request regarding guidelines, manuals or documents outlining the regulatory framework and standards used in nuclear regulation can be found on the following pages of our website:

Part 2 of your request regarding our reports or summaries of inspections, audits, or assessments conducted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation on nuclear facilities or activities, these can be found on the following page of our website:

Part 3 of your request regarding our records of enforcement actions taken against non-compliant entities or individuals can be found on the following pages of our website:

For parts 4 and 5 of your request, we are refusing these under s.12 of the FOIA, where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit.

Due to the very broad nature of these two elements of your request, the volume of information requested, and the way in which information is held on our systems, gathering it together is likely to take us beyond the appropriate limit set by the government. Regulation 3 of the Fees Regulations 2004 states that the appropriate limit for dealing with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests is £600, with staff time spent on permitted activities set at a flat rate of £25 per person, per hour (24 hours).

For part 4 of your request regarding “any correspondence or communications between the Office for Nuclear Regulation and regulated entities regarding compliance issues or regulatory matters.”

We note you have not specified any licensed sites, regulatory bodies, or named organisations in your request. We also note you have not provided any calendar or financial year time scales. Furthermore you have not provided a description of the types of compliance or regulatory matters you would like to seek information on.

As the UK’s independent nuclear regulator, we have the legal authority to regulate:

  • nuclear safety;
  • nuclear site health and safety;
  • nuclear security;
  • nuclear safeguards; and,
  • safety of transport of nuclear and radioactive materials.

We have the legal authority to regulate nuclear safety, nuclear security and conventional health and safety at the 35 licensed nuclear sites in Great Britain. This includes the existing fleet of operating reactors, fuel cycle facilities, waste management and decommissioning sites, as well as licensed and, in part, authorised defence sites, together with the regulation of the design and construction of new nuclear facilities, including the supply chain.

Our nuclear security regulation ensures the adequacy of security arrangements for dealing with special nuclear material and special nuclear information within the civil nuclear industry and we also regulate the safety and security of the transport of civil nuclear and radioactive materials by road, rail and inland waterway, extending our regulation across a large number of dutyholders.

Transparency about our work is essential to build and maintain public confidence in our regulation. We provide a significant amount of information on our regulatory activities on our website and through our stakeholder engagement. We always seek to be more open and transparent by sharing information on our activities, answering questions, exploring concerns and explaining our regulatory decisions.

Under our duty to provide advice and assistance under s.16 of the FOIA, we suggest that you may wish to narrow this part of your request by reviewing the stakeholder engagement pages on our website and the news pages on our website.

Finally, for part 5 of your request regarding any information related to incidents, accidents, or near misses involving nuclear facilities or activities, including investigations and follow-up actions.

Under our duty to provide advice and assistance under s.16 of the FOIA, we suggest that you may wish to narrow this part of your request by reviewing our regulatory reports along with our Chief Nuclear Inspector’s Annual reports on Great Britain’s Nuclear Industry as listed above.

This includes:

  • Local Liaison Committee (LLC) and Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) reports
    Each major licensed nuclear site has a liaison committee or stakeholder group, run by the licensee that includes local authorities, trade unions, interested local groups and members of the public. We regularly attend LLCs and SSGs, as observers, to report on our regulation. We also produce, regular reports for these groups about our inspection and regulatory activities relating to licensed nuclear sites, and we make these available to the public as part of our commitment to openness and transparency about our work.
  • Project Assessment Reports (PAR)
    A Project Assessment Report (PAR) is a document that presents the case in support of a regulatory decision.
  • Inspection records
    Inspection Records are documents that explain what ONR has done on the sites and facilities we regulate when we make inspection visits. They also record our findings and any significant actions we require the site operator to carry out in order to improve matters if appropriate.
  • Quarterly statements
    These statements provide information in relation to incidents or events that have occurred at civil nuclear installations in Great Britain, which have met the Ministerial Reporting Criteria.

Further information

Should you wish to narrow parts 4 and 5 of your request, please contact us via the email address contact@onr.gov.uk, quoting reference: FOI202402061. Any reformulated request will be treated as a new FOI request. Please note that in accordance with s.1(3) of the FOIA we are not under any further obligation to respond until you have provided the appropriate refinement.

Exemptions applied

s.12, s.21

PIT (Public Interest Test) if applicable

N/A