An analysis of the survey results on nuclear security culture for personnel at nuclear facilities

Abstract

The awareness of nuclear security culture for personnel at nuclear facilities was analyzed using the results of a survey that was conducted over three years (2015–2017) on more than 800 persons who worked at nuclear facilities. Questionnaires were developed for the survey and were divided into four categories: beliefs and attitude, operating systems, leadership behavior, and staff behavior. Each category contained between eight and twenty-three questions. The scores for the awareness of nuclear security culture averaged more than 80 points for all three years. The scores from 2016 were lower than the other two years, especially in the category of leadership behavior. Higher scores were for found on items such as responsibility of mission, training & exercises, supervision & management, and awareness of information security. The awareness on information security among those who work at nuclear facilities increased due to the revised government Act that required operators to strengthen information security at their facilities by recruiting more staff members and preparing various procedures. The scores for training & exercise items were also high, and can be ascribed to mandatory training and exercises specified in the Act. Operators were required to take training program for 4 h per year and nuclear facilities needed to perform security exercises annually. Lower scores were seen on the items like job definition, motivation for those who work in the security area, importance of duties, and expertise. The motivation for those who work in the security area included items that showed the lowest score for consecutive three years. The items that showed lower scores for three years consecutively are determined in each category. These are job definition, the importance of duties in the category of beliefs and attitudes, the evaluation of credibility in the operating system areas, motivation for security people and sharing of security information and objectives in the leadership behaviors category, and wariness on duties and expertise in the staff behavior area. Management should consider revising internal documents on nuclear security and give practical rewards to security personnel in order to raise awareness on nuclear security. In addition, training programs need to be categorized according to the trainee groups since those who have worked less than 9 years at a nuclear facility do not always recognize the importance of their roles and responsibilities.