Policy issues to be discussed during the IRRS mission are identified after reviewing a broad spectrum of information including, but not limited to, insights resulting from convention activities, international conferences and forums and previous IAEA safety review services conducted in the host country. The policy issues review may be further tailored to the host country’s IRRS mission through prior review of the host’s self-assessment and initial action plan.
Policy discussions between IRRS Review Team members and their host country counterparts are used to further the understanding of the attributes of an effective regulator and provide feedback for developing criteria to assess the effectiveness of regulatory systems. Whereas policy discussions may be held at a senior level, it is important that such issues are dealt with in a transparent and inclusive manner.
Further information on policy issues can be found in Appendix III and Section 7.4. of the
IRRS Guidelines.
Wherever possible, policy issues should be linked to IAEA safety standards. In such cases IRRS recommendations maybe made as with technical issues. Occasionally however, there may be no direct link with the Standards and in such cases it is important to explain why the issues will be addressed and what outcome is expected.
Documents and commitments made by the host country may provide useful information for reviewers evaluating the current functioning of the regulatory body and identifying policy issues. Such documents might include:
- The host country’s self-assessment and action plan
- The host country’s Advance Reference Material (ARM);
- Relevant technical issues arising during the IRRS, etc.
Other material may generate policy issues and facilitate discussion of their potential impact on regulatory responsibilities, functions and activities. Such material includes IAEA publications on regulatory and safety conferences and other relevant international meetings and forums; reports on safety issues and trends; results from other IAEA review missions; INSAG Reports; insights from the analysis of operational experience feedback from the IAEA’s Incident Reporting System (IRS) and others.
