Results of nuclear security culture survey on personnel at nuclear power plants

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2015.05.001

Annals of Nuclear Energy

Volume 85, November 2015, Pages 398-402

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2015.05.001 Get rights and content

Highlights

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A new surveying questionnaire for evaluating the security awareness of personnel was developed.
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The developed surveying tools consist of four categories and 44 questions in total.
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The surveying tools developed in this study can be used in other countries.

Abstract

A survey to evaluate awareness of the nuclear security culture of personnel at nuclear facilities was developed. The survey was made up of a series of questionnaires that were divided into four categories, beliefs and attitude, operating systems, leadership behaviors and staff behaviors. Each category contained six to 16 questions. The category on beliefs and attitude was composed of questions that asked plant workers on how much consideration facility personnel give to issues of security when doing his/her work. The section pertaining to operating systems for nuclear security consisted of questions on guidance documents, information security, and education and training. The questions on leadership behaviors were separated into two parts, one for managers and another for staff. These include questions relating to communication between management and staff, surveillance work related to nuclear security and the sharing of information. The last category of questions concerned staff behaviors. It consisted of questions on knowledge, procedures and implementation related to nuclear security. A survey was conducted on 858 people who worked at nuclear power plants using the questionnaire that was developed in this study. The survey was performed between October 7 to 17, 2014. The survey results were collected and analyzed. A numerical value was given to each question, so that the results of the survey were represented as a score. The data revealed that awareness of the nuclear security culture increased with age. This increase stopped when staff members entered their 50s. It is believed that a person in his/her 50s has a greater degree of experience and passion for their work than someone who is younger. As a result, the scores on nuclear security were higher for older personnel than for those who were younger. There was no direct relationship between the awareness score and length of service. The survey results on the working periods showed that there were no clear trends. This changed after an employee had worked for 9 years. After 9 years service, the scores gradually increased. Those who have worked more than 11 years were more aware of the importance of the security culture than those who worked less. On the subject of the awareness of the nuclear security culture between managers and staff, there were distinct differences. The results showed that managers were well aware of the importance of the nuclear security culture, and their scores for all categories were higher when compared to those of their staff.

Introduction

Even though a physical protection system may possess state of art technology, without a thorough understanding of the nuclear security culture, such a system could prove useless. The nuclear security culture is defined as an assembly of characteristics, attitudes and behavior of individuals, organizations and institutions that serves as a means to support and enhance nuclear security (IAEA document, 2008). Most security related incidents that have occurred recently resulted from a lack of awareness of the nuclear security culture. The nuclear security culture has been an important subject at nuclear security summits (Communiqué of nuclear security summit at Hague, 2014). The IAEA has been making efforts to enhance the awareness of the nuclear security culture. The agency plays a central role in raising awareness by publishing documents on the subject. In order to raise the awareness of the culture, it is necessary to evaluate the status of the nuclear security to those who employed at nuclear facilities. A survey is an effective ways to examine the level of awareness of the security culture. Questionnaires used in surveys should include all aspects of the security culture. WINS (World Institute of Nuclear Security) provided a simple questionnaire in its publication (WINS international best practice guide 1.4, 2011). However, its questionnaire is not broad enough to analyze all elements of the nuclear security culture. Several countries have been trying to develop questionnaires, which reflect elements from their own security culture. The ROK also initiated a study to develop questionnaires that consisted of 20 questions on the nuclear security culture in 2009. It was later used for a survey conducted on personnel at nuclear facilities in South Korea. The survey result showed that 20 questions used did not adequately reflect all elements attributed to a robust nuclear security culture. It therefore became necessity to develop of new surveying tool for evaluating the nuclear security culture. This study was conducted in order to develop new questionnaires that included all possible aspects of the security culture. A survey examining the awareness of the nuclear security culture, for 858 respondents who work at nuclear power plants, was carried out using this newly developed questionnaire.

Section snippets

Development of questionnaires

Attributes relating to the nuclear security culture were identified and analyzed by reviewing existing questions that were used in a similar survey in conducted in 2009, as well as questionnaires used in other surveys. Measures affecting the nuclear security culture included leadership management, security systems, and the behaviors of the facility’s staff. Based on these results, four categories such as beliefs and attitude, operating systems, leadership behaviors and staff behaviors were

Survey methodology

A survey was conducted to examine the level of awareness of the nuclear security culture of those people who work at nuclear power plants. An online survey was performed between October 7 to 17, 2014 with 858 respondents using the questionnaire that was developed in this study. This survey was given to those personnel who took in a mandatory training program. A numeric value was given to each answer category ranging from 20 (strongly disagree) to 100 (strongly agree) point. The score was

Discussions

The awareness of the nuclear security culture by personnel in their 20s and 30s was lower than that of other ages. These two age groups showed the lowest scores in beliefs and attitude. It was revealed that they recognized the importance of security and had high degree of responsibility toward their duties. They had difficulty in distinguishing the difference between safety and nuclear security since they had no experience in discerning these two terms, as can be seen in Fig. 5. It is believed

The way forward

The survey results showed what measures should be taken in order to enhance security awareness. The first measure focuses on education and training programs. As can be seen in the survey results, education and training programs should be customized for each differing group. For example, young employees should receive training in the importance of nuclear security. For managers, leadership training should include communication skills. Various education and training programs using on-line and

Conclusions

A questionnaire used in this survey was developed for evaluating the level of awareness of the nuclear security. The questionnaire was composed of four categories, beliefs and attitude, operating systems, and leadership and staff behaviors. A total number of 858 people who work at nuclear power plants in the area of nuclear security were surveyed. The degree of awareness of the nuclear security culture was numerically expressed. An analysis was made of the relationship between the awareness

Acknowledgments

This work has been carried out under the Nuclear Research and Development program supported by the NSSC–South Korea.

References (3)

Communiqué, 2014 Hague Nuclear Security Summit,...

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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