ONR BOARD MEETING Paper No ONR/14/05/02a Meeting Date: 24 June 2014 Agenda item: 02a FOI Exemptions FOI Status: Open TRIM Ref: 2014/210027 Minutes of the ONR Board Meeting held at 10.00 on Thursday 1 May 2014 at Arkle/Orchid Rooms St James House St James Square Cheltenham GL50 3PR Board members present: Also attending: Nick Baldwin – Chair Dave Caton Steve Bundred Kathy Donnelly Jonathan Baume Claire Lyons John Crackett Edwina Hinton (items 1 – 9) Andy Hall David Senior (item 3 only) John Jenkins Andy Lindley (items 9 & 10) Les Philpott Mike Finnerty (item 9 only) Liz Siberry Chris McEwan (items 10 & 11) Secretariat: Sue Johns 1 WELCOME, INTRODUCTIONS, APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST 1.1 Nick Baldwin welcomed members to the first full meeting of the statutory ONR Board. He noted that ONR had vested successfully and congratulated the Essentials for Vesting (E4V) team for their timely project delivery. He also congratulated all who had been involved in making the Corporation Day event such a success. There were no apologies for absence or declarations of interest. 2 ITEMS FOR DECISION/DISCUSSION RELATING TO ONR AS AN AGENCY OF HSE 2.1 Minutes of the last meeting held on 25 February 2014 – Paper ONR/14/04/01 2.1.1 The minutes of the last meeting held on 25 February 2014 were agreed. 2.1.2 John Jenkins noted that they recorded all the then speculative items that the Executive said would happen and had subsequently come to pass. Les Philpott commented that the separation from HSE Shared Services had been a particular challenge but all staff had been paid and received expenses. He paid tribute to the efforts of those who had made that possible under the leadership of Paula Wheeler. Page 1 of 11 2.2 Matters Arising 2.2.1 There were no matters arising. 2.3 Summary of Board Decisions and Action Log as at 31 March 2014 – Paper ONR/14/04/02 2.3.1 The summary of the decisions and actions, all completed, was noted. 3 Finance, Performance and Assurance Report – Paper ONR/14/04/03 3.1.1 Kathy Donnelly noted that the report being presented was for Q3 but that action was being taken to improve the timeliness of reporting, as requested by the Board, and the intention was to present Q1 2014/15 at the July meeting. Nick Baldwin warmly welcomed this move. 3.1.2 Kathy Donnelly reported that performance of corporate functions was healthy: the Essentials for Vesting delivered successfully; the actual spend against the mid-year profile was +1% (well within the Board’s target of +/-3%); and sickness absence was well below the comparator. For 2014/15, the comparator has been replaced by the target published in the Annual Plan (average of 5.5 days per person). 3.1.3 Regulatory delivery continued to show an improving trend with indicative outturns for the year of 92% of planned Licence Condition inspections completed and 97% of planned system based inspections completed against targets of 95% and 100% respectively. Although below target, the trend towards improvement, resulting from management action taken following the Q1 report and the successful embedding of new processes in relation to system based inspections, will continue into the new financial year. 3.1.4 Les Philpott highlighted that the marked improvement was a direct result of management action. Steve Bundred and John Crackett concurred that the current report is an example of best practice and ample assurance that the business was well managed. John Jenkins reminded fellow Board members that there was still much to do; the next phase was to determine how progress could be measured. 3.1.5 Nick Baldwin enquired as to when the missing data for Sellafield and the GDA work would be available. Kathy Donnelly responded that work was in hand with the relevant programmes to identify meaningful indicators and that these are expected to be included in the Balanced Scorecard by Q2. 3.1.6 David Senior introduced the Q3 Assurance report. The key conclusion of the evidence presented was that our regulatory activities have provided assurance of the continued safety and security of the industry. The report summarised key milestones delivered against the operating plan and, with the Board’s consent, would be sent to the Secretary of State DECC. Page 2 of 11 3.1.7 David Senior highlighted the following: He had raised the small number of system based inspections and shortfall on compliance inspection delivery in the Defence programme with the new Programme Director, Richard Savage. An unacceptable level of compliance (7% of planned inspections completed) in Transport inspections had also been reported during that period; corrective actions had been put in place. He had previously raised the management of regulatory issues at Sellafield as a risk however the Programme was showing much improvement on quality of information and active management of issues to closure. Regarding enforcement action, ONR had issued an Improvement Notice to Sellafield following a “Conventional Health and Safety” inspection that highlighted shortfalls on the prevention of exposure to Legionella. This demonstrated that the conventional safety regulatory function was now firmly established within ONR and the staff secondment arrangements with HSE were working well. The highly complimentary letter from Rt Hon Ed Davey MP, the Secretary of State DECC, following the submission of Q1 and 2 reports was referred to. It confirmed ONR’s assurance reporting was meeting the Minister’s expectations and encouraged further development of the process and metrics. 3.1.8 Finally, David Senior outlined the improvement that had been put in place for data collection and the production of these reports in a timelier manner. The Q4 report would be the last in the current format and would come to the June Board meeting. The Q1 report for this financial year would follow a new approach and would be provided to the July Board meeting. It would be a shorter more focused report and this had been agreed with government. David emphasized that it still maintained reference to and measurement against KPIs and milestones and would continue to form the basis of the CNI’s Annual Report. 3.1.9 Nick Baldwin asked whether news of the Improvement Notice issued to Sellafield had been publicised and highlighted how impressed the Rt Hon Mike Penning MP, Minister of State for Disabled People DWP, had been with the recent successful conviction brought by ONR against Sellafield. Claire Lyons confirmed that such actions are covered as a news story on the day but where an Improvement Notice was involved there was a delay of 21 days before it could be made public. 3.1.10 John Crackett asked for clarification as to the meaning of the 145% figure in balanced scorecard 3.3 – Inspections: Cumulative % achieved to plan (excluding System Inspections). David Senior explained that this was a function of the summation of reactive and proactive inspections. 3.1.11 John Jenkins noted the IRRS would return for a further mini-ission in November this year. David Senior confirmed the 2013 mission report had been published on 16th April. A project team with appropriate governance arrangements had been established under David’s leadership and it was noted that good progress had already been made in relation to closing out the new findings. He confirmed that the scope of the mini- mission had been agreed between John Jenkins, DECC Officials and the IAEA. Page 3 of 11 3.1.12 In conclusion, Nick Baldwin congratulated the management on a greatly improved report and the Board gave its consent for the report to be sent to the Secretary of State DECC, copied to DWP. Action The Board approved the Q3 Assurance Report for submission to DECC, copied to the DWP Minister for information. Kathy Donnelly ITEMS FOR DECISION/DISCUSSION RELATING TO ONR AS A PUBLIC CORPORATION 4 Minutes of the Statutory ONR Board meeting on 12 March 2014 4.1 The ONR Board noted the Minutes. 5 Chair’s Report – Oral item 5.1 Nick Baldwin noted that he had begun a series of meetings as part of the Advocacy Programme and, as part of that, had done some refresher Media Handling training. With respect to the media, he had already met the Financial Times and was due to meet a number of other newspapers and trade journals in the coming weeks. He and John Jenkins had met their counterparts from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and had discussed Sellafield among other topics. 5.2 Nick Baldwin reported that he had been asked to join the Energy and Utilities Forum, a group that met under “Chatham House” rules. The topic of the next meeting was the Competitions and Markets Authority. He had also joined the Public Chairs’ Forum, which provided an excellent networking opportunity for him with chairs of other regulators. He was unable to attend the next meeting but Steve Bundred had agreed to go in his place. 5.3 With John Jenkins, he had visited Dungeness A and B and had seen Peter Hayes (a safety trained Inspector) take action on a security matter; he cited this as an example of exactly the sort of integrated regulatory activity that ONR should be carrying out and that he found this reassuring. The visit was very informative; he and John had also been able to see Dungeness during the outage. 5.4 Nick Baldwin and other ONR Board members had attended the NGO Forum the previous week and it was clear that it was no longer working as a way to engage constructively with this group of stakeholders.