Mark McAllister, ONR ChairI wrote last year in our October newsletter about the priorities during my first six months as Chair. These focused on meeting our staff and stakeholders and building a clear picture of the work we do and future needs. I commented that there were both challenges and opportunities for ONR in the coming months, although we couldn’t have predicted quite how challenging 2020 would turn out to be.
The Board and I have been working behind the scenes, supporting the Senior Leadership Team, to ensure that ONR has continued to deliver its regulatory functions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, protecting society by securing safe nuclear operations whilst supporting ONR’s staff. We’ve also worked closely with our Incident Management Team on future scenarios and recovery from the pandemic.
Additionally the Board has discharged its vital role in setting the Strategy 2020-25 and is accountable for ensuring ONR’s new mission, vision and values are fulfilled, while remaining agile and innovative in our regulation as the nuclear landscape changes.
So it is great to have now shared this with our stakeholders and I look forward to continuing the engagement we already have with many of you, and to meeting many more of you - even if virtually for now - in the months ahead as we continue ONR’s journey.
We’ve had some highly effective ONR Board members over the last seven years, and the two new Non-Executive Directors who joined in April and June this year bring a wide range of experience and have already hit the ground running in their impact on the Board. I’m therefore delighted that in this edition of ONR News Dr Janet Wilson shares her experience of joining ONR during lockdown and the positive impact she intends to make. And we will shortly be announcing another new Board member (security lead), as we say farewell to Oona Muirhead on 30 September.