Professor William Reville:

No, I do not mean what I said in a negative manner. The flexibility suits the EPA and works well for the organisation. It has four offices at the moment dealing with different parts of the environment but it can chop and change the responsibilities and work and swap between the offices if it sees fit. That is not intrinsically a bad thing but I would not like to see the office of radiological protection interfered with in such a manner for at least several years after it is set up in the EPA. In order to bed it down properly I would prefer to see it established in legislation because that would put on a lot of inertia, and if pressure came on to chop and change it, that would not be easily or quickly done. I would prefer to see it embedded in legislation. Why would it not be? It is qualitatively different from everything else the EPA does. It is a whole institute that is now being put into the EPA. Why would it not merit “radiation” in the name of the new merged institute? Apart from any other consideration, it seems to be very unfair that it would not be the case. It would be bad for the morale of the Radiological Protection Institute to be erased in such a manner.