Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 84 replies
  • Subscribers 14 subscribers
  • Views 6098 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

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.

Parents
  • 0
    Arran,

    There isn't a definitive answer to this simply because the licenced engineer (except in certain industry specific contexts such as railway signalling engineering) doesn't currently exist and so hasn't been defined, hence this is open to definition if and when such a scheme were developed.  However, I would suggest that it should not be directly a part of licencing for exactly the reasons that you point out.  I think the need to consider this depends on the security sensitivity associated with the role being taken and should be administered separately, specific to the role, by the employing/hiring organisation, and almost certainly already is in such instances that it is relevant by the employer/client requiring appropriate levels of security vetting/certification.
Reply
  • 0
    Arran,

    There isn't a definitive answer to this simply because the licenced engineer (except in certain industry specific contexts such as railway signalling engineering) doesn't currently exist and so hasn't been defined, hence this is open to definition if and when such a scheme were developed.  However, I would suggest that it should not be directly a part of licencing for exactly the reasons that you point out.  I think the need to consider this depends on the security sensitivity associated with the role being taken and should be administered separately, specific to the role, by the employing/hiring organisation, and almost certainly already is in such instances that it is relevant by the employer/client requiring appropriate levels of security vetting/certification.
Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines