Providing efficient and effective regulation of the nuclear industry, and holding it to account on behalf of the public, isn’t just a mission statement in our strategic plans; it’s fundamental to the work we do, day in, day out, all year long. We published our annual report in June, looking back on our regulatory activities. Here’s a snapshot of our regulation during 2017/18.
In 2018/19, we carried out more than 1,000 inspections across 36 licensed sites and transport dutyholders, ensuring the required standards of safety and security to protect the public and workers. We granted permission for licensees and dutyholders to perform more than 30 nuclear-related activities, while five improvement notices were served and complied with.
We also granted design acceptance confirmation for a new reactor – the UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor, designed by Hitachi-GE – while, despite a challenging timescale, we made significant progress developing a safeguards regime in preparation for the UK’s exit from Euratom. We also continued to make good progress in regulating hazard reduction and remediation work at Sellafield’s legacy facilities.
And, already beginning to address your concerns about our medium-term capacity and capability, we grew by 8% to 564 staff, supported by our new Academy which is responding to the need to train more people in all aspects of our operations, in more flexible and agile ways – to meet the needs of a modern, mobile workforce.
We are making good progress towards our 2020 Strategic Plan and you can read more about our key achievements and milestones during 2017/18, as well as our plans for 2018/19, including our top ten priorities.