When we designed GDA in 2006/7, we set unprecedented levels of openness by asking the Requesting Parties to publish their safety cases, and we, the regulators (ONR & EA) published all our GDA assessment reports. Publishing documents demands additional resource as they have to be checked to ensure they contain no commercially confidential or security sensitive information. When we began GDA in 2007 we judged that the publication of Regulatory Observations (ROs) was not appropriate or necessary.
However, whilst we viewed the openness of GDA of the UK EPR and AP1000 as a success, there is always scope for improvement. Therefore, during our review of lessons learned from the GDA of the UKEPR and AP1000 designs, we identified a number of areas for improvement; one of which, was toextend the scope of publication throughout GDA to include all the Regulatory Observations (ROs) and associated Requesting Party resolution plans. This is the approach we are now undertaking for GDA of the UK ABWR.