ASN Report 2018

In 2018, ASN issued 129 approvals or approval renewals. As at 1 January 2019, the total number of approved laboratories stood at 62, which represents 880 approvals of all types currently valid. The detailed list of approved laboratories and their scope of technical competence is available on asn.fr . 5 —  Identifying and penalising deviations ASN implements enforcement measures, making it possible to oblige a licensee or party responsible for an activity to restore compliance with the regulations, along with penalties. 5.1  ̶  Fairness and consistency in the decisions regarding enforcement and sanction measures In certain situations in which the actions of the licensee or party responsible for a nuclear activity fail to comply with the regulations or legislation, or when it is important that appropriate action be taken by it to remedy the most serious risks without delay, ASN may resort to enforcement measures and impose the penalties provided for by law. The principles of ASN actions in this respect are: ∙ ∙ actions that are impartial, justified and appropriate to the level of risk presented by the situation concerned. Their scale is proportionate to the health and environmental risks associated with the deviation identified and also take account of factors relating to the licensee (past history, behaviour, repeated nature), the context of the deviation and the nature of the requirements contravened (regulations, standards, “rules of good practice”, etc.); ∙ ∙ administrative actions initiated on proposals from the inspectors and decided on by ASN in order to remedy risk situations and non-compliance with the legislative and regulatory requirements as observed during its inspections. ASN has a range of tools at its disposal regarding the party responsible for a nuclear activity or a licensee, more particularly: ∙ ∙ the inspector’s observations; ∙ ∙ the official letter from the ASN departments (inspection follow-up letter); ∙ ∙ formal notice from ASN to regularise the administrative situation or meet certain conditions, within a given time-frame; ∙ ∙ administrative penalties applied after formal notice. Lessons learned by ASN about the organisation of ILTs and the results of these tests From 2003 to 2018, IRSN organised 76 ILTs. Laboratory participation in the ILTs is in response both to the requirement set out by standard NF EN ISO/CEI 17025 specifying the general requirements concerning the competence of calibration and testing laboratories and to the regulation which requires that laboratories present the results obtained in the ILTs in support of their approval applications. Since the first ILTs organised in 2003, ASN and IRSN have observed progress among the population of approved laboratories: over time, the laboratories have on the whole obtained more satisfactory results in the ILTs, which means a relative drop in the number of corroboration tests to be organised and in the number of approvals issued for trial periods. ASN therefore considers that IRSN’s organisation of the inter-laboratory comparison tests is an efficient, robust and proven system which fully meets its objective of assessing the quality and reliability of the measurements taken by the various participating laboratories. It helps promote an improvement in the competence of the laboratories and ensures that their performance is maintained over time, inorder to guarantee the quality of the environmental radioactivity measurement results made available to the public on the RNM mesure-radioactivite.fr website. Breakdown of the number of approved laboratories for a given environmental matrix as at 1 January 2019 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Foodstuffs Surrounding environment Gas/Air Aerosols/Filter Biological Soils Water Licensee Private Institutional University Association Total Graph 11 152  ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018 03 – REGULATION OF NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES AND EXPOSURE TO IONISING RADIATION