Thank you for your letter of 1 July in which you asked for answers to three additional questions following HSE's appearance before your Committee on 15 June 1998.

1. As requested, I enclose a copy of a letter dated 13 March 1998 from Dr Nelson, Director of Dounreay to Laurence Williams. This is the one referred to in Ms Taylor's letter of 23 March.

2. I enclose copies of the three Improvement Notices—served on 28 November 1997, not 28 January 1998. They were served on UKAEA and relate to a change of contractors and their qualifications[11].

3(a). After the need for an additional inspector in the Dounreay site inspection team was highlighted in January 1997, senior management in the Nuclear Safety Directorate (NSD) decided to allocateDr Walker, a Chemical Engineer, to this post in view of his extensive experience of inspection of Chemical Plants such as Spingfields, Capenhurst and Chapelcross. This decision was taken as part of the Directorate's annual Career Planning Group Review in which senior management review career moves for all NSD inspectorial staff.

3(b). Dounreay was first licensed by HSE in October 1990 and two nuclear inspectors were allocated to the site. This pattern was repeated at the UKAEA's site at Harwell and Winfith and one inspector was allocated to Windscale/Springfields; a total of 7 inspectors. In April 1995, NSD senior management decided that for inspection purposes the sites at Dounreay and Windscale should be combined and that Harwell and Winfrith should also be combined with two inspectors allocated to each combined site—total 4. In August 1996, the linking of inspection at Windscale and Dounreay was ended and both inspectors were dedicated to Dounreay. Some special inspections were carried out at Dounreay in the period October to December 1996. In February 1997 an additional inspector (Dr Walker) was allocated inspection duties at Donreay bringing the total allocated to UKAEA to five, of whom three worked solely on Dounreay.

3(c). The reorganisation mentioned by Laurence Williams in reply to Q112 is part of an overall restructuring of the whole Directorate into three Operational Divisions along with a Director's Secretariat and two Central Units reporting directly to Mr Williams. The Directorate moved to this structure on 1 July 1998 and I enclose an extract from an article in our in-house magazine which gives some background to the change and has an organisational chart. Under the old structure the various activities on UKAEA sites were covered by inspectors in all three Divisions, for example: projects at the cementation plant by Division 1; assessment of safety cases by Division 2; and inspection by Division 3. Under the new structure all of these activities will now be the responsibility of the new Division 3. Furthermore inspection and assessment of UKAEA activities are now integrated within Unit 3b enabling them to take a more focused approach to these tasks.

15 July 1998

  UKAEA Dounreay have a requirement to bring a small amount of irradiated and unirradiated material on to site from an overseas country. The irradiated material is in the form of test reactor fuel elements with a total uranium content of less than 5kg. The unirradiated material is in the form of test reactor fuel rods and rod components with a total uranium content of 10kg.

  Could you provide me with exemption to the licence instrument for this specific project stating NII's agreement that this material may be brought to site?

13 March 1998

  These changes have led me to start a restructuring of the Directorate in a way that reflects the businesses that we now regulate and which will give more involvement to all NSD staff in the regulatory process. It will ensure clearer responsibilities and accountabilities.

  Along with my senior management, I am finalising a move to three Operational Divisions along with a Director's Secretariat and two Central Units reporting directly to me. Each operational Division will contain the inspection, assessment and administrative staff to regulate its sector as follows:

Division 1—Britsh Energy;

Division 2—BNFL/Magnox; and

Division 3—MOD/UKAEA/Amersham/Research Reactors.

  I am currently planning for the Directorate to move to this structure on 1 July 1998, and when all the details are finalised, a revised organisational chart will be circulated to all parts of HSE.

  Unit Heads will be given one or more "corporate responsibilities" such as emergency arrangements, and radioactive waste, to ensure consistency of approach across the three Divisions. We also want to nominate a number of inspectors as "specialist champions". Each will have to ensure they keep at the very forefront of knowledge in a particualr specialist technical topic and provide a focus for it within NSD.

  These are radical proposals but they represent an exciting opportunity for the development of the existing NSD staff. They will ensure that NSD's and HSE's existing reputation as a world-class regulator is maintained and enhanced and are the beginning of the establishment of NSD as a centre of regulatory excellence.