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Time for licenced Engineers?

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
As a result of a discussion within a Linkedin group. I had originally raised the issue of the EC UK or IET legally licencing Engineers and had agreed to bring this discussion from Linkedin to the IET members in an appropriate community for a frank and open debate.

​The circumstances surrounding this discussion was the tragedy of Grenfell Towers and my personal observation that some of the alleged decision makers, had no technical qualifications to make decisions on public safety. I am wondering how far the inquiry will go to reveal that issue. 

​

As I currently work in Canada we do have an act of law governing the conduct of its licenced Engineers and this makes the Engineer have some higher degree of responsibility for public safety.


​Questions

1)    Given the impact of Grenfell, does EC(UK) have to now start considering licencing? What are the perceived hurdles to achieve this?

​2)    If not. What can we do within our profession to improve pubic safety with an objective to prevent another 'Grenfell' ?


I am ​Interested to get IET members responses.

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    Gareth,

    A very good question and one that has been discussed in part elsewhere in other threads. I can only give my personal viewpoint but will chip in with an answer.

    First the IET can't go it alone and start licencing engineers as it needs to be all of the Professional Engineering Institutes (PEIs) which puts it in the lap of EC(UK). The Engineering Council website states "The Engineering Council is the UK regulatory body for the engineering profession" and as such would endorse the view that it is their responsibility, but the licencing of engineers requires two things - first the granting of the licence to the engineers (which you could argue is already in place with EngTech, IEng, CEng and ICTTech) but crucially secondly the legislation in place to prevent unlicenced engineers practicing. This latter is something that is not in place in Britain at present. Perhaps the outcome of the enquiry will change the mood in the country to make it politically desirable.

    At present I am doubtful that there are enough registered engineers of the various grades to cope with such legislation (i.e. do the volume of work that would be required to be completed by licenced engineers) so what needs to happen is an increase in registered engineers, particularly engineers in the earlier stages of their careers who I believe are currently under-represented, and to cope with this we would need a big increase in volunteers to help deal with the increase in applications.

    Just my two-pennyworth.

    Alasdair
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  • 0
    Gareth,

    A very good question and one that has been discussed in part elsewhere in other threads. I can only give my personal viewpoint but will chip in with an answer.

    First the IET can't go it alone and start licencing engineers as it needs to be all of the Professional Engineering Institutes (PEIs) which puts it in the lap of EC(UK). The Engineering Council website states "The Engineering Council is the UK regulatory body for the engineering profession" and as such would endorse the view that it is their responsibility, but the licencing of engineers requires two things - first the granting of the licence to the engineers (which you could argue is already in place with EngTech, IEng, CEng and ICTTech) but crucially secondly the legislation in place to prevent unlicenced engineers practicing. This latter is something that is not in place in Britain at present. Perhaps the outcome of the enquiry will change the mood in the country to make it politically desirable.

    At present I am doubtful that there are enough registered engineers of the various grades to cope with such legislation (i.e. do the volume of work that would be required to be completed by licenced engineers) so what needs to happen is an increase in registered engineers, particularly engineers in the earlier stages of their careers who I believe are currently under-represented, and to cope with this we would need a big increase in volunteers to help deal with the increase in applications.

    Just my two-pennyworth.

    Alasdair
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