Hi Gareth,
Are you by any chance the Gareth Wood that worked with me and years back?
Your description of the Canadian issues is very interesting and I'm with you completely that all of the issues we've both mentioned are utterly tied up with the recognition - both publicly and at government level - of the engineer. The UK is appalling on this front being one of the only countries not to protect the title engineer, and constantly perceiving engineers as being tradesman level technicians, in contrast to those professions where the title is protected (solicitor, accountant, doctor etc.).
However, from your description, I would say there's not a great deal of difference in principle between the Canadian licensed engineer and the UK C.Eng or I. Eng. There may be differences in the detailed criteria, but the principle appears similar. And, as a Professional Registration Interviewer, I know for certain that, among the criteria is the whole concept that you are fully responsible for your engineering judgement and decisions. One of the key areas of focus is to examine how you would deal with a situation where your employer or client did not accept your engineering judgement or decision - or whether you would allow employer or client pressure to persuade you to go against that judgement.

The problem lies with that public and governmental perception, and the fact that the principles applied by the PEIs are not ensconced in law - if there is evidence that a Professionally Registered engineer had not been ethical, or had been negligent, the registration can and will be withdrawn. The problem is that has no meaning in law - it does not prevent you practicing, but I don't believe there are any people in the engineering community (or at least the PEI community) who don't believe that it should do. As you say, all apart from providing assurance of high quality, conscientious and ethical engineering, this failure of government and the public to recognise the true nature of a professional engineer, it robs the profession of its attraction to potential entrants into the profession.
As for being able to be penalised legally for malpractice, whilst our law doesn't remove your right to practice, which it clearly should do, it does provide the ability to take action against an individual guilty of malpractice. It's a very clear situation for someone such as me who operates my own company providing engineering services to clients, my company (which I'm my case equals me, as sole director and employee) is liable for that, can be sued for negligence and has to carry Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance. However, there is also a clear legal principle that even an employee can be responsible both in civil law and criminally for negligence if they are employed as, and claim to be, the person who holds the greatest competence to ensure that what they do is carried out diligently, hence, as my client's Project Engineer, because I hold a higher level of knowledge and competence in my specialist field than my client (or the manager in my client organisation) I can definitely end up in the dock answering for my negligence. This would be equally true if I were an employee with greater competence/knowledge than my manager or other people in the employer organisation. My manager, or the employing organisation may end up there alongside me for failing to check my competence, etc. but I would be seen to be culpable by failing to use the engineering judgement I was specifically employed to provide. As Project Engineer, every time I sign to accept design or construction from a contractor, I am exposing myself to the risk of being prosecuted if I have been negligent in doing so. I do so willingly as that is what I consider comes with operating as a Chartered Engineer.
What is less certain is whether the justice system or the Civil authorities invoke that law as often as they should, and that brings us back to government and the public not treating engineers in the same way as solicitors, doctors or accountants.
So, I still don't believe that the engineering community itself, it in particular the PEIs can or need to introduce new ways to validate Professional Engineers or the way that they practice, what exists already provides the mechanism for that, the change that's required has to come from the public at large and in particular the government.
Unfortunately, at the recent annual Fellows event at the IET, I specifically asked the question as to whether efforts were still being made to bring government round to the concept of a protected title which would carry all of the above with it, plus raise the perception of engineer status, and whether it was felt we might ever achieve that breakthrough, the answer I received was that that boat had left long ago, and that it was clear they were never going to be able to persuade government that this should be introduced in the UK. So it's a British Disease, and those who engage with government believe it's incurable.

Hi Gareth,
Are you by any chance the Gareth Wood that worked with me and years back?
Your description of the Canadian issues is very interesting and I'm with you completely that all of the issues we've both mentioned are utterly tied up with the recognition - both publicly and at government level - of the engineer. The UK is appalling on this front being one of the only countries not to protect the title engineer, and constantly perceiving engineers as being tradesman level technicians, in contrast to those professions where the title is protected (solicitor, accountant, doctor etc.).
However, from your description, I would say there's not a great deal of difference in principle between the Canadian licensed engineer and the UK C.Eng or I. Eng. There may be differences in the detailed criteria, but the principle appears similar. And, as a Professional Registration Interviewer, I know for certain that, among the criteria is the whole concept that you are fully responsible for your engineering judgement and decisions. One of the key areas of focus is to examine how you would deal with a situation where your employer or client did not accept your engineering judgement or decision - or whether you would allow employer or client pressure to persuade you to go against that judgement.

The problem lies with that public and governmental perception, and the fact that the principles applied by the PEIs are not ensconced in law - if there is evidence that a Professionally Registered engineer had not been ethical, or had been negligent, the registration can and will be withdrawn. The problem is that has no meaning in law - it does not prevent you practicing, but I don't believe there are any people in the engineering community (or at least the PEI community) who don't believe that it should do. As you say, all apart from providing assurance of high quality, conscientious and ethical engineering, this failure of government and the public to recognise the true nature of a professional engineer, it robs the profession of its attraction to potential entrants into the profession.
As for being able to be penalised legally for malpractice, whilst our law doesn't remove your right to practice, which it clearly should do, it does provide the ability to take action against an individual guilty of malpractice. It's a very clear situation for someone such as me who operates my own company providing engineering services to clients, my company (which I'm my case equals me, as sole director and employee) is liable for that, can be sued for negligence and has to carry Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance. However, there is also a clear legal principle that even an employee can be responsible both in civil law and criminally for negligence if they are employed as, and claim to be, the person who holds the greatest competence to ensure that what they do is carried out diligently, hence, as my client's Project Engineer, because I hold a higher level of knowledge and competence in my specialist field than my client (or the manager in my client organisation) I can definitely end up in the dock answering for my negligence. This would be equally true if I were an employee with greater competence/knowledge than my manager or other people in the employer organisation. My manager, or the employing organisation may end up there alongside me for failing to check my competence, etc. but I would be seen to be culpable by failing to use the engineering judgement I was specifically employed to provide. As Project Engineer, every time I sign to accept design or construction from a contractor, I am exposing myself to the risk of being prosecuted if I have been negligent in doing so. I do so willingly as that is what I consider comes with operating as a Chartered Engineer.
What is less certain is whether the justice system or the Civil authorities invoke that law as often as they should, and that brings us back to government and the public not treating engineers in the same way as solicitors, doctors or accountants.
So, I still don't believe that the engineering community itself, it in particular the PEIs can or need to introduce new ways to validate Professional Engineers or the way that they practice, what exists already provides the mechanism for that, the change that's required has to come from the public at large and in particular the government.
Unfortunately, at the recent annual Fellows event at the IET, I specifically asked the question as to whether efforts were still being made to bring government round to the concept of a protected title which would carry all of the above with it, plus raise the perception of engineer status, and whether it was felt we might ever achieve that breakthrough, the answer I received was that that boat had left long ago, and that it was clear they were never going to be able to persuade government that this should be introduced in the UK. So it's a British Disease, and those who engage with government believe it's incurable.