- Site: Sellafield
- IR number: 22-008
- Date: April 2022
- LC numbers: 7
Executive summary
Purpose of Intervention
In accordance with the Office for Nuclear Regulation’s (ONR’s) Sellafield Strategy, we undertake a series of planned inspections seeking to determine compliance against the conditions of the site licence.
The purpose of this particular intervention was to undertake a planned compliance inspection against licence condition (LC) 7 (Incidents on the site). This inspection focussed on the local implementation with the Sellafield Ltd LC7 corporate arrangements at the Highly Active Liquor Evaporation & Storage (HALES) facility.
Interventions Carried Out by ONR
The planned half-day LC 7 compliance inspection was carried-out on 27 April 2022 at HALES. I carried out this intervention with the support of a member of the Sellafield Ltd internal regulator: Nuclear Intelligence & Independent Oversight (NI&IO). The NI&IO representative is independent of the facility and was considered a full member of the inspection team and was involved in all aspects of planning and conducting the inspection.
The inspection was carried out in line with ONR’s Technical Inspection Guide NS-INSP-GD-007 Issue 6.1.
Explanation of Judgement if Safety System Not Judged to be Adequate
N/A
Key Findings, Inspector's Opinions and Reasons for Judgements Made
Based on a high level review of the condition reports raised in the period 1 April 2021 to 30 March 2022, together with a more focussed review and discussion on a smaller sample, I am satisfied that, at the HALES facility, the Sellafield Ltd LC 7 arrangements have been properly implemented.
In a number of areas I identified good practices, including: a high quality Programme Performance Improvement team, well written and illustrated Basic Cause Investigations (BCI) and high quality material with summary dashboards supporting the Management Peer Review.
I provided four pieces of regulatory advice:
- I have provided regulatory advice to HALES to ensure that any “ONR(SI)” notification requirements are followed where appropriate (e.g. for “R5d” events).
- Providing the role of the individual(s) investigators (as opposed to simply giving their name(s)) on BCI reports would give a better record of why they were suitable.
- The BCI and/or sentencing comments for BN2105A2213 should be revised to ensure that the rationale for not carrying out a Management Investigation is adequately captured.
- The BCI for BN2110A3569 needed the company event classifications to be added to the front page.
Conclusion of Intervention
Based on the evidence sampled I consider that an inspection rating of GREEN (no formal action) is appropriate for LC 7. No regulatory issues have been raised but regulatory advice has been provided as described above.