Regulating Compliance for Nuclear Materials Accountancy, Control and Safeguards in the UK: ONR’s Experience of First Year Operations Since Becoming the UK State Regulatory Authority

Following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Euratom Treaty, the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) became the UK state regulatory authority for nuclear safeguards on 31 December 2020. Prior to this, ONR, along with the UK Government and civil nuclear stakeholders, set about establishing a robust and resilient UK State System of Accounting for, and Control of, Nuclear Material which, amongst other tasks, required the development and implementation of domestic safeguards regulations, a regulatory framework to enforce these regulations, and an IT system to process nuclear material accountancy declarations prior to submission to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). ONR has now completed a full year as the SRA, processing nuclear material accounting data arising from the operators’ declarations, undertaking inspection and assessment activities against our domestic regulations, facilitating IAEA inspections to enable the UK to meet its international obligations, and reporting against the UK’s nuclear cooperation agreement commitments. In this time, ONR has also continued to develop our Safeguards Information Management and Reporting System ensuring that the quality of the declarations submitted to the IAEA and the UK’s international partners is sustained. This paper provides an overview of ONR’s activities in our first year of regulation, capturing the challenges faced in implementing a new domestic safeguards regime within the constraints of a global pandemic, reflects on key learning points that we have identified during our activities, and discusses proposed improvements to our approach as we move forward into the future.