Executive summary
Date(s) of inspection:
- January 2023
Aim of inspection
The purpose of an ACP inspection is to seek regulatory confidence that the operator’s ACP adequately describe the arrangements and procedures adopted to establish and maintain the system of accountancy and control of qualifying nuclear material within the facility and that the arrangements and procedures described within the ACP are implemented and complied with.Subject(s) of inspection
- FSE 10 Quality Assurance and Control for NMACS - Rating: Green
- FSE 4 Reporting, Anomalies, and Investigations - Rating: Green
- NSR19 Reg06 - Accountancy and control of qualifying nuclear material - Rating: Green
- NSR19 Reg07 - Accountancy and control plan - Rating: Green
- NSR19 Reg09 - Operation of an accountancy and control plan - Not rated
Key findings, inspector's opinions and reasons for judgement made
This inspection focused on substantiating claims, arguments and evidence presented in the UUK ACP document. This was achieved by reviewing the appropriate section within the operator ACP, a sample of operating instructions and arrangements followed by a plant walk-down and discussion with staff with operational implementation responsibilities within targeted facilities. Based on the inspection activities sampled, I consider that Urenco UK Ltd are implementing appropriate arrangements for Quality Assurance of their Nuclear Material Accounts broadly in line with the requirements of Regulation 6 (Schedule 2) and our expectation detailed in ONMACS section FSE 10 – Quality Assurance and Control for NMACS.
However, the operator's current ACP does not contain adequate substantiating argument or appropriate signposting to underpinning supporting evidence to fulfil our regulatory expectations under Regulation 7 of NSR 19, I am therefore unable to make a judgement in respect to its implementation under Regulation 9 of NSR 19. There is an extant regulatory issue currently being undertaken by the operator with an action to review and update the ACP as a whole to address this issue.
Based on the arrangements sampled, I judge that Urenco UK Ltd has appropriate arrangements for recording and reporting of Safeguards related incidents and events and that those arrangements are adequately described in the operators Accountancy And Control Plan.
The arrangements described in the ACP are being adequately implemented and are broadly in line with ONR regulatory expectations detailed in FSE 4 of ONMACS.
I provided one piece of regulatory advice that the operator should consider how the section in their ACP relating to Quality Assurance of the Nuclear Material Accounts can be better aligned to meet our claims, argument, evidence expectations.