ARPANSA - Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

For the past four years ARPANSA has held an annual licence holder forum. In 2008, the forum was held in Melbourne, 2009 in Canberra, 2010 in Sydney, and most recently in Melbourne in November 2011. All forums have been well supported with an average of 65 attendees.

At the end of each forum, licence holders were asked to provide feedback by completing a short survey. Response from the majority of licence holders has been positive, with minimal negative comments.

"I wholeheartedly support the forum concept. It creates the feeling of a team approach that can only aid in the outcome for all involved."

"It is an important networking opportunity."

The post-survey questions requiring licence holders to rate their experience produced the following results:

Question	Average rating*
Year Number of responses	2008 (18)	2009 (25)	2010 (38)	2011 (30)
How do you rate the conduct of the forum?	4	4	4	4
How do you rate the value of the forum to you?	4	4	4	4
How do you rate your overall satisfaction with ARPANSA’s performance as a regulator?	3	3.5	3.5	4

*Rating scale: 5–Excellent; 4–Good; 3–Satisfactory; 2–Less than Satisfactory; 1–Poor

There was constructive feedback for improvements to both the conduct of the forum and ARPANSA's regulatory performance. Several useful suggestions for improving the forum format and content included:

• more discussion and Q&A rather than formal presentations
• theme-specific forums
• forums aimed specifically at small licence holders
• less formal seating arrangements
• licence holder case studies
• appoint chairperson to introduce speakers (and include a short bio)
• facilitated workshopping
• more non-ionising content (non-laser)
• discussion of accidents/incidents and lessons learnt

All suggestions will be considered for future forums.

The increase in overall satisfaction with ARPANSA's performance as a regulator was encouraging. The following comments were made after the most recent forum:

"Customer relations has improved markedly over the last couple of years."

"Improved communication and transparency in recent times."

More pro-active engagement rather than a reactive approach was preferred.

There were several suggestions for how the website could be improved, such as:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Exemption limits
• Labels and Signs
• Security category calculator tool
• Glossary of terms

All suggestions will be considered as we strive to make the site more user-friendly. The recent addition of the Regulatory Notice Board with RSS feed was popular.

Other common themes emerging from the surveys included:

• Risk-based regulation rather than rules-based regulation
• Uncertain response times
• Better co-ordination required between regulators and other statutory authorities
• More consistency required between ARPANSA and state regulators
• Changes to legislation required
• Quarterly report reminders are valued
• More information required on NORM issues
• Less detailed inspection reports received sooner
• Better definition of "premises" required

ARPANSA values stakeholder feedback as we strive for continuous improvement.

We believe the following recent or planned changes will address some of the issues raised by licence holders:

• More concise inspection report format
• Publication of inspection reports on the web
• Graded approach to non-compliance and findings of breach now being implemented (Formal Enforcement Policy expected to be released early in 2012)
• Amendment of ARPANS Act in 2012

Top of Page