Establishing A Regulatory Framework For Nuclear Materials Accountancy, Control And Safeguards: The ONR Approach To Safeguards Assessment, Inspection & Enforcement

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) independently regulates nuclear safety, security and safeguards across the UK. Its duty is to ensure that the UK nuclear industry controls its hazards effectively, has a culture of continuous improvement and maintains high standards. In order to effectively regulate compliance with the UK’s domestic safeguards regulations and to meet the UK’s international safeguards obligations, the ONR has established an effective and robust regulatory framework that is now being implemented to ensure UK duty-holders demonstrate high standards of nuclear material accountancy, control and safeguards. The ONR has adopted a modern outcome focussed regulatory approach to the regulation of safeguards where inspectors utilise a wide range of regulatory tools to influence improvements through the implementation of targeted and proportionate assessment and inspection activities. The safeguards regulatory framework is substantiated by ONR’s longstanding regulation of nuclear safety and security, affording safeguards inspectors with regulatory intelligence from ONR’s safety and security activities. In addition, ONR has a well-established enforcement framework, ensuring the appropriate use of enforcement powers to secure sustained compliance with the law and to ensure that those who have duties under it may be held to account for failures in standards. This paper provides an overview of ONR’s safeguards regulatory framework, focussing on how safeguards assessment and inspection activities are implemented to influence improvements in nuclear material accountancy and control and to make effective regulatory judgements on duty-holder compliance with the law.