The Development and Current Activities of the DOE Inspection and Evaluation (I&E) Program

Organizations with diverse field activities under the direction of a headquarters have long recognized the need for oversight of the field activities from Headquarters. The Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), have all conducted oversight activities for fielddirected protection programs. One such program that has been operated by DOE since late 1981 to review the effectiveness of protection programs is the Inspection and Evaluation program, commonly known as the I&E. Since its inception, the I&E has been reviewed by two senior management groups. One group said that \"I&E is not only an independent and legitimate tool for the Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs (ASDP) but also has been of great value to the Field Offices and contractors in raising the level of safeguards and security awareness and the amount of management attention given to security matters.\" The second group reported that \"during its travels, the Special Project Team (SPT) heard complaints about the I&E process at every site. The most common complaint was the absence of departmental standards and policy and consequently by default, that I&E personnel were making up their own policy and thereby establishing their individual and collective views as policy. Still it must be recognized that the I&E has probably done more than any other DOE element to promote Safeguards and Security awareness and action.\" These two quotations demonstrate that the I&E program has played a very active, very visible, and not always popular role in the many and significant improvements which recently have been made in the DOE-wide protection systems. However, until now, the I&E has not \"gone public\" in describing its operation, discussing how it was developed, or revealing what it is planning for in the future. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to address two of those three areas—the development of the I&E program and how the I&E process currently operates. An accompanying paper will discuss the future direction of the I&E program.