The strategic plan for the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations

Following the request from the NEA that all the committees should develop Strategic Plans and the report of the Effectiveness Review Group (ERG) on the effectiveness of CSNI's activities, CSNI created a Strategic Planning Group to review their working processes. In developing a five year rolling Strategic Plan, the Group has considered the need for more top-down direction by CSNI, stricter control on time limited Task Groups and improved communications including timely review and publication of reports. The Strategic Planning Group, after reviewing the current work structure of CSNI and the current technical issues as laid out in the SESAR series of reports and the CNRA report on Regulatory Effectiveness, have made the following recommendations. The basic elements of the CSNI will continue to be the Principal Working Groups, which will be known in future simply as Working Groups. The number of Working Groups and their areas of expertise will be reviewed periodically when the strategic plan undergoes a review. It is recommended that this Plan be reviewed every five years. In order to provide better top-down direction by the CSNI, it is recommended that a small Programme Review Group (PRG) be created. The PRG will assist the CSNI Bureau to review proposals from the Working Groups, and enable the review of major reports to ensure high quality. To ensure timely management of projects and reviews of proposals and reports it is recommended that CSNI have a second full meeting in early summer. It is recommended that Special Expert Groups (SEGs) be created reporting directly to CSNI. These Groups would deal with issues that cut across the disciplines of more than one Working Group and be assigned clear time-limited mandates. The creation of SEGs on Fuel Safety Margins and on Human and Organisational Factors is proposed at this time. Restructuring of the five Principal Working Groups into four Working Groups is recommended. This would be accomplished by merging the former PWG2 and PWG4 into a single Working Group and re-assigning some of their work to the new SEG on Fuel Safety Margins. It is also recommended that the former Working Group on Fuel Cycle Safety be incorporated into the Working Group on Operational Experience (former PWG1). Criteria for measuring the priority and success of CSNI projects have been developed. It is also proposed that CSNI review the overall effectiveness of this new Strategic Plan two to three years after its implementation to ensure that the desired level of efficiency, control and direction has been achieved. (authors)