ONR’s role is to regulate the nuclear industry on behalf of the public and public safety is what drives us daily. But we wanted to understand through our survey how well we have got that message across to our stakeholders.
There are clearly mixed views from stakeholders; while 61% think we publish the right amount of information in the public domain, almost all stakeholder groups suggested we could improve our public and media profile. From ONR’s perspective we are keen to raise our media profile, but only where it furthers our regulatory aims and drives the highest standards of safety and security in nuclear operations.
Many stakeholders also feel we need a higher profile among industry too, although feedback on how we engage is positive with 87% of licensees believing we listen to them. That number does fall to 50% when it comes to interested groups and individuals, which includes our NGO community and Site Stakeholder Groups. In addition, only 59% of respondents overall believe we consult on priorities and plans.
This is an area we intend to focus on over the next 12 months, and we are already exploring ways to:
- Improve our profile through better and appropriate use of social media
- Have better conversations with the NGO community to address concerns and raise awareness of how we regulate
- Review the way we consult the public on plans to build new reactors for example
- Increases our communications such as newsletters like this one and
- Ensure inspection reports and other documents are written in clear language so they are easier to understand.
This article featured in our March 2017 ONR News ebulletin. It’s free to sign-up.