The UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has been working with the UK Government to build its State System of Accounting for, and Control, of nuclear material capability that the UK will need once Euratom provisions cease. The ONR established a project to establish this capability. There are many facets to the ONR project to achieve this including providing safeguards input to support government negotiation of new international agreements and development of the associated domestic legislation; developing the regulatory approach, strategy and associated governance and processes, ensuring alignment with ONR’s longstanding regulation of nuclear safety and security; developing an IT system (the Safeguards Information Management and Reporting System, SIMRS) to enable receipt, consolidation and processing of nuclear material accountancy reports from UK operators, including production of the reports that will be required of the UK under new safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and under new nuclear co-operation agreements, and also enhancing processes for UK reporting under its new Additional Protocol with the IAEA; recruiting and training personnel such that ONR’s new safeguards function has the collective capability to be able to meet the UK’s international safeguards obligations and implement a domestic safeguards regulatory regime; and, transition from the project delivery to stable operations, embedding the new Safeguards function within ONR’s Civil Nuclear Security Division. All of these aspects of the project were built from a limited base and were systematically developed and tested in readiness for live operation as part of ONR’s preparations to take on its new regulatory responsibilities in respect of safeguards. This paper provides an overview of ONR’s work with details and examples relating to each of the elements highlighted above.
Year
2020
Abstract