DAY-TO-DAY OVERSIGHT OF NATIONAL LABORATORY MC&A PROGRAMS

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) orders require that its Los Alamos Area Office (LAAO) oversee the dayto- day activities of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Making that oversight unobtrusive is important to keep it from creating additional burdens of reports and programs for the LANL. LAAO accomplishes day-to-day oversight of Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) at the LANL as an onsite observer of LANL's in-house monitoring activities. Working guidelines established for the LAAO observer prevent us from hindering LANL's program. A subset of MC&A activities that spans a wide range of MC&A programs with great sensitivity to functionality was selected for monitoring. Thus, timely \"finger on the pulse\" monitoring occurs without smothering the laboratory. LAAO and LANL Management negotiated implementation and observer guidance for the monitoring process. LAAO will apply the method used to other topical areas of the Safeguards and Security arena in the future.