I have followed some of the dicussions on here regarding pathways to registration, but have not seen any way to demote someone who fails to meet the standard. Company directors can be banned, QA certificates can be revoked, doctors and nurses can lose registration, how about the IET/EC? I am thinking of the current enquiry into the Grenfell disaster as an example. Some of the people involved may have a professional registration but could those be rescinded? I know that enquiry is not over by a long way, but does such a pathway even exist (nothing was obvious to me)? The fact that people can claim things (including qualifications and registrations) without it being easy to check on them is a whole other, but related, problem. Fundamentally it is not in the financial interests of the IET/EC to kick people out and I imagine it is rare but just made me think.
But I would imagine the only circumstances related to an incident such as Grenfell when they would invoke the disciplinary procedure is if that member was prosecuted for criminal negligence - the IET doesn't have a police force, they are really not in a position to decide themselves whether a member was competent in their day job. (It is an interesting question as to whether the disciplinary procedure would get invoked if a member was successfully sued in a civil court for negligence - maybe they would if the IET happened to find out?)
And of course it's not much of a sanction anyway since you can still practice as an engineer in the UK without registration. Prosecution under HASAWA etc and getting a criminal record is a much more effective sanction...
My guess is that the only other time the IET would take action against a member due to activities in their professional role would be if they were passing themselves off as registered when they weren't, because that is something the IET could make a decision on. Beyond that my guess would be these rules could only be effectively applied if a member is negligent in a volunteering etc role within the IET.
And of course there is the annual audit by the Engineering Council of CPD records with the threat of de-registration if CPD is not being carried out. However again I am unaware of any such enforcement being carried out and the audit only checks a fraction of candidates.
There was a case around 2000, if I remember correctly, when the IEE acted on a member who had been involved in a dispute over ownership of archival material from Bletchley Park. That story received some wider news publicity at the time so there may have been an aspect of protecting the image of the institution and profession. It does pale in comparison to Grenfell, however.
The current edition of Member News includes a recent disciplinary judgement against an IET member - tucked away in the social media news section. My main observation on this story is that so few details are given that it is impossible to discern the basis for what has been decided. The norms of justice, in wider society at least, thrive on a degree of openness. That openness is on full display in the ongoing Grenfell investigations. (Regarding the particular IET member, there is no point mentioning specifics in this forum. I raise the story here only because it is topical to this thread, which gets right to the heart of one aspect of our professional standards as engineers.)
