Background
Experience in a wide range of organisations entrusted with the security of radioactive sources or nuclear material strongly indicates that a pervasive culture of security—as much as robust security arrangements—is essential to successfully lowering the risks associated with internal and external threats.
Security culture can be defined as “the beliefs, values, understandings and behaviours that people—from the board to the general workforce—bring to security”. An effective security culture depends on proper planning, training, awareness, operations, and maintenance as well as on the thoughts and actions of people who plan, operate and maintain security systems. An organisation may be technically competent while remaining vulnerable if it discounts the role of the human factor. Thus, the human factor (including the upper tier of managers and leaders) is important to effective nuclear security.
In an organisation with a strong security culture, staff believe that security threats are real, understand it is their responsibility to contribute to the security of the entire organisation, and adhere to security practices as a normal part of their daily work lives. If they observe an anomaly or hear something suspicious, they report it unhesitatingly to their supervisors. If they make a mistake themselves, they willingly own up to it, seek to understand how it occurred, and work actively to improve their performance. If they have ideas or suggestions for how to improve security, they share them with their managers and colleagues because they know such contributions are encouraged, respected, and rewarded.
In contrast, if the security culture is weak, the workforce may resent security features and do their best to ignore or circumvent them. They may also be reluctant to express concerns about aberrant behaviours and issues, materially increasing the risk for all concerned.
Developing a strong security culture is an on-going, step-by-step process. An organisation’s aim should be to encourage awareness among staff of the role they play in protecting their organisation’s business assets as well as the safety and security of their entire community. Consequently, this is not a one-off exercise. It needs to continue as long as your organisation uses nuclear material or high activity sources—including those that are at the end of their useful lives and are in onsite storage awaiting proper offsite disposal.
Many of the tools and techniques that have emerged from the effort to improve safety culture are directly relevant to security culture. Both disciplines play important roles in maintaining safe, secure operations and are closely linked in their underlying principles. Furthermore, both safety and security cultures are dependent on proper planning, training, awareness, operation and maintenance. Even a well-designed system can be degraded if the culture of the organisation allows poor procedures to persist or if it leads staff to believe they do not need to follow the procedures.
Objectives
The workshop will review and discuss all steps and elements of a comprehensive nuclear security culture. The main objectives of this workshop will be:
- To develop a common understanding of what is meant by establishing an effective security culture and to review the elements of organisational culture;
- To identify the respective roles and responsibilities of licensees and regulators in establishing an effective and sustainable security culture, and to listen to their experience and lessons learned when doing so;
- To review and discuss the factors that encourage a strong security culture and offer practical guidance to organisations willing to improve their own practices;
- To discuss the process for assessing the level of awareness and culture in an organisation, and to identify possible incentives to encourage staff to adhere to security practices as a normal part of their daily work lives;
- To explore options to engage effectively with all internal and external stakeholders and move towards an organisation culture integrating security, safety, and operational aspects.
Participants will be encouraged to identify immediate steps that can be taken to strengthen security culture in their organisations and countries.
Audience
The workshop will be open to a group of 36 participants total, including 18 Indonesia delegates and 15 regional participants from Brunei, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The event will target in priority representatives from:
- organisations that operate research reactors,
- organisations that use activity radioactive sources (medical, academic and industry),
- Regulatory authorities and their technical support organisations,
- Carriers and from other organisations involved in the transport of class 7 materials,
- Law enforcement agencies and other governmental agencies.
3 international experts will be invited to share their experiences and lessons learned from developing a robust and sustainable security culture.
Female practitioners will be strongly encouraged to apply. At least 40% has been set up as target for female speakers and female participants.
Process
The workshop will be jointly organised with the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) of Indonesia.
This event will be interactive and professionally facilitated. The workshop will be built around a number of presentations as well as case studies and breakout sessions that enable participants to further explore the topic and share their experience and lessons learned.
An instant electronic voting system will allow participants to provide their views on questions put to the workshop by anonymously registering their opinions using a keypad.
The workshop will be held in English. The discussions will be unclassified but subject to Chatham House rules (what was said can be reported, but not attributed).
The workshop will include the visit of the BRIN nuclear site located in Serpong, South Tangerang city, Banten province, Indonesia.
