Examination of Witnesses (Questions 377-379)
OFFICE FOR
CIVIL NUCLEAR
SECURITY
19 JUNE 2006
Q377 Chairman: Gentlemen, welcome to
this session of our inquiry into issues around nuclear new build.
It may be almost the final one but I think it is the first time
the Office for Civil Nuclear Security has given evidence in front
of a Select Committee, so we are very grateful for that. We do
understand that there may be issues you would not want explored
in too much detail in public, but we hope the issues of principle
will not pose any problems for you. Can I begin by asking you
to introduce yourselves?
Mr Brunt: Thank you, Chairman,
it is a great privilege to be here. My name is Roger Brunt, I
am the Director of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, I took
up the post some two years ago in September 2004 after a career
in the Army. That is my background. My colleague is Mr Bryan Reeves.
Mr Reeves: Chairman, my name is
Bryan Reeves, I am the principal inspector for Transport Security
at the Office for Civil Nuclear Security and I have been with
the organisation now for 10 years.
Q378 Chairman: Thank you very much.
As this is the first time your organisation has given evidence,
can I begin with the slowest imaginable ball and ask you to begin
by outlining the areas of responsibility of your Office?
Mr Brunt: We are the Government's
security regulator for the civil nuclear industry and as such
we are responsible for ensuring the standards which have been
laid down in a very recent piece of regulatory code, the Nuclear
Industry Security Regulations 2003, are complied with across the
47 nuclear sites in this country. Without being too hyperbolic,
it is going from Dounreay to Dungeness, from Sellafield to Sizewell.
Our activities embrace four main areas: the actual physical security
of the sites themselves; information security, so if you are keeping
information with sensitive nuclear matters on it you need to make
sure that information in whatever media is kept secure; there
is then transport security, which makes sure as nuclear material
moves between sites it is looked after adequately; and finally
personnel security, that everybody who works in the industry,
whether as permanent employees or as contractors to the industry,
needs to be security-cleared, vetted to a level appropriate to
their access to nuclear material. We have some 42 members of staff
committed to those activities, the majority are based at our main
offices at Harwell near Oxford, on the current United Kingdom
Atomic Energy Authority site, and clearly with the geographical
responsibilities I alluded to earlier we travel the country and
are constantly on the road.
Q379 Chairman: That leads me on to
my next, slightly less slow, ball: 42 staff I think you said.
Mr Brunt: Correct.
|
