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Director's Perspective
Welcome to the Office of Environment, Safety and
Health Evaluations
Thomas Staker, Director
The Office of Environment, Safety and Health Evaluations
is one of the four subordinate offices to the Office
of Independent Oversight under the Office
of Health, Safety and Security (HS-1). Our mission
is to determine whether our workers, the public, and
the environment are adequately protected from the
hazards associated with DOE activities and sites and
to identify areas where improvements are needed.
Our goal is to provide accurate information to DOE
managers and other stakeholders about environment,
safety, and health policies and performance. We strive
to provide balanced reports that identify areas
of good performance as well as weaknesses. We also
strive to efficiently analyze complex activities of
a wide array of operations and provide constructive
and insightful assessments within a framework that
helps line management identify a path forward to
make the needed improvements. We meet these challenges
through the competence and dedication of our staff
and our proactive efforts to coordinate with line
management before, during, and after inspection activities.
Our evaluations of environment, safety, and health
will continue to focus on performance using three
basic approaches. First, we evaluate the integration
of environment, safety and health into work planning
and execution, primarily through observing work activities.
This bottom-up approach allows us to determine the
effectiveness of environment, safety, and health programs
and management systems in establishing hazards controls.
Second, we evaluate the functionality of select facility
engineered safety systems so that we can determine
how nuclear safety programs and management systems
work together to ensure protection from the hazards
associated with nuclear facilities and operations.
Third, we evaluate both Department line management
and contractor feedback and improvement mechanisms
to determine whether these systems are providing accurate
information on performance and are effective in correcting
deficient conditions.
In addition to the above three areas, we perform
periodic cross-cutting reviews of selected program
areas to evaluate performance at sites and provide
perspectives on Department performance. These areas
are selected based on such factors as performance,
changes in requirements, and significance of hazards.
We will also provide an annual report in accordance
with the Department's Integrated Safety Management
Manual.
I hope that you find this web site helpful in understanding
the role of our Office and the process we use to fulfill
our mission. If you have any comments or questions
regarding the content of our web site or our organization,
please contact Thomas Staker, Director, Office of
Environment, Safety and Health Evaluations at Thomas.Staker@hq.doe.gov.
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