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Time for licenced Engineers?

Former Community Member over 7 years ago

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 Roy Bowdler over 6 years ago
As several answers have illustrated there are many rules, regulations and “best practice” models influencing “who can do what” in different sectors, especially so in safety critical environments. The consequences for any organisation failing to exercise due care can be considerable. For example, the parent group of my previous employer needed to turnover several billion pounds in order to recover the losses arising from a non-fatal (but very disruptive) accident. The primary cause of which was inadequate supervision, allowing a group of workers to “cut corners”, to maximise their productivity bonus payment. As I suggested by my previous post, in my experience the UK has a very strong health, safety, environmental protection and risk management culture.

As Andy touched upon, some would argue that this is excessive and a potential “drag” on productivity and competitive advantage. Some politicians and sections of the media find easy pickings in “elf & safety” as a symptom of mindlessly applied rules (blame EU!) or excessive fear of litigation (blame USA!). Similar suspects are of course the first to howl in outrage when something goes wrong. Even we get sucked in to the blame culture and assume that “unlicensed engineers” are a problem. As I think the discussion has touched upon; Do those engineers who seek personal responsibility and the exclusion of (less qualified) others, accept the consequences of being held personally to blame? Where the risk is modest it can be carried by an individual or SME, but with increasing risk comes a need for major organisations with deep pockets (including states). Those responsible at strategic level, therefore need systems to evaluate competence, apportion responsibility appropriately and ensure feedback mechanisms to monitor performance.

My focus would be; how can the IET and other professional engineering institutions best add value? I don’t have the answer, but a few thoughts.

It is understandable that those who have invested greatly in education, training and career progression, should seek a fair ration of advantage for their efforts. For those who find themselves interacting with other “prestigious” graduate professions, such as academia, medicine and the law, relative status is a natural concern. However, I’m not clear that being a Chartered Engineer is held in any less esteem than many comparisons such as Accountancy, Surveying etc. An unfortunate and major negative side effect of this search for status, is a focus on elitism and sometimes unreasonable negative stereotyping of other competent practitioners of good conduct. Such motives and similar behaviours manifest themselves in other skilled work groups, or almost any group for that matter, it’s just sociology/social psychology.

Early in my career as an apprentice I joined the Electrician’s Union, then a Engineers and Managers one (now Prospect) which also had a PEI element. The government of the time stopped this, so Engineering Council affiliated PEI’s explicitly cannot engage in Trades Union type activity. However many PEIs are de-facto Chartered Engineer’s “unions”, albeit of a different character. Moshe as he has so often done, helps us to understand this in an international context. I have not seen any evidence that where lobbying of politicians by university educated Engineer’s representatives has achieved some form of statutory “protection”, standards are higher than in the UK. Is there evidence that I have missed? Earnings may of course be higher if supply is choked and demand created.

The evolution of formal groups of professionals either as unions or learned societies led to fragmentation and specialised silos, often reinforced by “closed shop” behaviours. This has benefits where tightly focussed specialist expertise is needed, but you need a lot of different specialists to cover anything of scale. The IIE pulled back together some of this fragmentation and the IET carried on that momentum, unfortunately hampered by IMechE not joining in, but they were spurred on by “competition” which always offers some benefits. If as engineers we want to exercise strategic level influence then greater unity is essential. Otherwise we will only be called when someone needs our type of expert.

In its current form our system of recognition was evolved mainly by academics. Without applying a specifically UK cultural perspective; “A History of the International Engineering Alliance and its Constituent Agreements: Toward Global Engineering Education and Professional Competence Standards” (International Engineering Alliance 2015) states.

A useful starting point is to note that the engineering of the Industrial Revolution had been essentially practical. During the Industrial Revolution a division of labour took place between engineers, who, while still essentially practical were responsible for the conception and design of machinery and those skilled in their construction – who we today call technicians. While scientific discoveries continued engineering remained practical into the early twentieth century before science-based-engineering became established . As the science base of engineering developed a further division occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, the emergence of the engineering technologist, skilled at applying established technology as distinct from the science-based professional engineer. Thus, in the period covered by this history the roles of professional engineer, engineering technologist and engineering technician exist in many jurisdictions.

A two-stage model for professional engineering formation was well-developed in the original six and subsequently admitted signatory jurisdictions. For example, the development of a professional engineer to the level required for independent practice has an education stage, normally provided by an externally accredited program of 4 or 5 years duration post-secondary school, followed by a period of supervised training while gaining experience in engineering practice. The individual may then have his or her competence assessed, and be eligible for recognition as a competent engineering practitioner and qualify for registration or licencing. This model underlies the agreements and standards described in this history.



Does this frame of reference help us to identify “who can do what”? Bob explained how he first gained practical understanding and experience alongside appropriate theory (an apprenticeship) before extending his learning to meet the “academic requirements” for Chartered Engineer. I don’t know how relevant that learning was to his further development, but I recognise and respect the effort involved. I faced a similar decision at the age of 21 with an apprenticeship and HNC behind me. The degree syllabus didn’t seem relevant to my needs, logistics and indirect costs were difficult and I took a two-year part-time industrial management course at my local polytechnic instead, working the hours back, although my employer paid the fees. I eventually carried significant responsibility for developing and evaluating the competence of Technicians and Engineers, but with the emphasis on operations, maintenance and even corporate strategy, rather than design or research and development. Most of the assumptions underlying our current model of CEng assume that the latter supersedes and subsumes the former by being “intellectually superior”. This argument has some merits and draws on models like Bloom’s Taxonomy for justification, but also has very many serious flaws in practice.

I mentioned in my previous post “putting our own house in order”. This for me this means using our collective capability to nurture our members towards delivering higher performance. Performance can be measured in many ways, not just academically, or aligned to our personal interpretation of UK-SPEC (of which there are many). Carrying out assessment reviews for the purposes of registration helps to an extent, but for most people it’s a “one off” and for many has seemed more like an alumni society, especially in some other PEIs. The IET has made recent commendable efforts to engage other types of practitioners like Electricians for example, but has also been culpable in allowing Engineering Council to pander to the agenda of some CEng for “clearer superiority”. As I said to Engineering Council at the time, they were just “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and they lost moral legitimacy in my eyes. This type of one-upmanship has nothing whatsoever to do with competence and it has merely increased the ratio of registered CEng compared to the other two categories.

Among the many excellent CEng that I regularly encounter few need any “protection”, since their achievements often speak louder than their title. A few employers lack the wherewithal and commitment to ensure the competence of their employees, but most make a respectable effort. Perhaps we should establish a library of anonymous poor practice examples? I used years ago to receive a magazine highlighting every significant electrical accident in the UK Electricity Supply Industry, with an explanation of the causes, which became part of the training syllabus as appropriate, perhaps becoming a simulated scenario. In the same way, aviation accidents are incorporated into Pilot Training usually in simulators. Engineers working with “established technology” often can’t afford to crash or even hamper the productivity of sometimes immensely valuable assets, yet they are assumed to be of “lower” IEng competence, a “Technologist” or a “Technician”. De-facto an academic semester of calculus is held to have more value than many thousands of hours of relevant vocational practice.

I have made constructive suggestions in these forums for a better approach that I won’t repeat here, but if we can build greater credibility outside our existing strongholds, more stakeholders would come to see being a registrant as a desirable and accurate quality mark, rather than a historic qualification or “honorific” that it is now. We gain nothing by undermining our premium CEng brand and those who govern the profession wouldn’t dare to offend anyway, since “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” is poised with pen (or keyboard) in hand. I can’t see a valid argument for statutory protection of the term engineer, but I want to support something stronger than we have. Unfortunately, during the last ten years when I have been more actively involved, my enthusiasm on the basis of our current proposition has cooled considerably. I’m sorry to say that I have found the arguments put forward by some CEng or on their behalf, very poor, naively “entitled” and unbecoming of someone “at the top” of their profession.

If Bob or anyone else for that matter identifies a risk in their domain, then there is nothing to prevent them from identifying the relevant stakeholders and building a case for change. To make a broad based strategic argument that all “engineers” should be “licensed” is much more difficult and I would take a lot of persuading. We have successfully persuaded some regulators, major employers and others to value professional registration as an element of due diligence and risk management. Unfortunately as I see it, good quality and well thought out arguments around “who should do what” are undermined by those who assume intellectual superiority and entitlement. As I see it engineers should mainly be practical and pragmatic users of science, not "watered down" scientists. https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/nov/21/university-engineering-departments-overalls-research
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0 Roy Bowdler over 6 years ago
As several answers have illustrated there are many rules, regulations and “best practice” models influencing “who can do what” in different sectors, especially so in safety critical environments. The consequences for any organisation failing to exercise due care can be considerable. For example, the parent group of my previous employer needed to turnover several billion pounds in order to recover the losses arising from a non-fatal (but very disruptive) accident. The primary cause of which was inadequate supervision, allowing a group of workers to “cut corners”, to maximise their productivity bonus payment. As I suggested by my previous post, in my experience the UK has a very strong health, safety, environmental protection and risk management culture.

As Andy touched upon, some would argue that this is excessive and a potential “drag” on productivity and competitive advantage. Some politicians and sections of the media find easy pickings in “elf & safety” as a symptom of mindlessly applied rules (blame EU!) or excessive fear of litigation (blame USA!). Similar suspects are of course the first to howl in outrage when something goes wrong. Even we get sucked in to the blame culture and assume that “unlicensed engineers” are a problem. As I think the discussion has touched upon; Do those engineers who seek personal responsibility and the exclusion of (less qualified) others, accept the consequences of being held personally to blame? Where the risk is modest it can be carried by an individual or SME, but with increasing risk comes a need for major organisations with deep pockets (including states). Those responsible at strategic level, therefore need systems to evaluate competence, apportion responsibility appropriately and ensure feedback mechanisms to monitor performance.

My focus would be; how can the IET and other professional engineering institutions best add value? I don’t have the answer, but a few thoughts.

It is understandable that those who have invested greatly in education, training and career progression, should seek a fair ration of advantage for their efforts. For those who find themselves interacting with other “prestigious” graduate professions, such as academia, medicine and the law, relative status is a natural concern. However, I’m not clear that being a Chartered Engineer is held in any less esteem than many comparisons such as Accountancy, Surveying etc. An unfortunate and major negative side effect of this search for status, is a focus on elitism and sometimes unreasonable negative stereotyping of other competent practitioners of good conduct. Such motives and similar behaviours manifest themselves in other skilled work groups, or almost any group for that matter, it’s just sociology/social psychology.

Early in my career as an apprentice I joined the Electrician’s Union, then a Engineers and Managers one (now Prospect) which also had a PEI element. The government of the time stopped this, so Engineering Council affiliated PEI’s explicitly cannot engage in Trades Union type activity. However many PEIs are de-facto Chartered Engineer’s “unions”, albeit of a different character. Moshe as he has so often done, helps us to understand this in an international context. I have not seen any evidence that where lobbying of politicians by university educated Engineer’s representatives has achieved some form of statutory “protection”, standards are higher than in the UK. Is there evidence that I have missed? Earnings may of course be higher if supply is choked and demand created.

The evolution of formal groups of professionals either as unions or learned societies led to fragmentation and specialised silos, often reinforced by “closed shop” behaviours. This has benefits where tightly focussed specialist expertise is needed, but you need a lot of different specialists to cover anything of scale. The IIE pulled back together some of this fragmentation and the IET carried on that momentum, unfortunately hampered by IMechE not joining in, but they were spurred on by “competition” which always offers some benefits. If as engineers we want to exercise strategic level influence then greater unity is essential. Otherwise we will only be called when someone needs our type of expert.

In its current form our system of recognition was evolved mainly by academics. Without applying a specifically UK cultural perspective; “A History of the International Engineering Alliance and its Constituent Agreements: Toward Global Engineering Education and Professional Competence Standards” (International Engineering Alliance 2015) states.

A useful starting point is to note that the engineering of the Industrial Revolution had been essentially practical. During the Industrial Revolution a division of labour took place between engineers, who, while still essentially practical were responsible for the conception and design of machinery and those skilled in their construction – who we today call technicians. While scientific discoveries continued engineering remained practical into the early twentieth century before science-based-engineering became established . As the science base of engineering developed a further division occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, the emergence of the engineering technologist, skilled at applying established technology as distinct from the science-based professional engineer. Thus, in the period covered by this history the roles of professional engineer, engineering technologist and engineering technician exist in many jurisdictions.

A two-stage model for professional engineering formation was well-developed in the original six and subsequently admitted signatory jurisdictions. For example, the development of a professional engineer to the level required for independent practice has an education stage, normally provided by an externally accredited program of 4 or 5 years duration post-secondary school, followed by a period of supervised training while gaining experience in engineering practice. The individual may then have his or her competence assessed, and be eligible for recognition as a competent engineering practitioner and qualify for registration or licencing. This model underlies the agreements and standards described in this history.



Does this frame of reference help us to identify “who can do what”? Bob explained how he first gained practical understanding and experience alongside appropriate theory (an apprenticeship) before extending his learning to meet the “academic requirements” for Chartered Engineer. I don’t know how relevant that learning was to his further development, but I recognise and respect the effort involved. I faced a similar decision at the age of 21 with an apprenticeship and HNC behind me. The degree syllabus didn’t seem relevant to my needs, logistics and indirect costs were difficult and I took a two-year part-time industrial management course at my local polytechnic instead, working the hours back, although my employer paid the fees. I eventually carried significant responsibility for developing and evaluating the competence of Technicians and Engineers, but with the emphasis on operations, maintenance and even corporate strategy, rather than design or research and development. Most of the assumptions underlying our current model of CEng assume that the latter supersedes and subsumes the former by being “intellectually superior”. This argument has some merits and draws on models like Bloom’s Taxonomy for justification, but also has very many serious flaws in practice.

I mentioned in my previous post “putting our own house in order”. This for me this means using our collective capability to nurture our members towards delivering higher performance. Performance can be measured in many ways, not just academically, or aligned to our personal interpretation of UK-SPEC (of which there are many). Carrying out assessment reviews for the purposes of registration helps to an extent, but for most people it’s a “one off” and for many has seemed more like an alumni society, especially in some other PEIs. The IET has made recent commendable efforts to engage other types of practitioners like Electricians for example, but has also been culpable in allowing Engineering Council to pander to the agenda of some CEng for “clearer superiority”. As I said to Engineering Council at the time, they were just “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and they lost moral legitimacy in my eyes. This type of one-upmanship has nothing whatsoever to do with competence and it has merely increased the ratio of registered CEng compared to the other two categories.

Among the many excellent CEng that I regularly encounter few need any “protection”, since their achievements often speak louder than their title. A few employers lack the wherewithal and commitment to ensure the competence of their employees, but most make a respectable effort. Perhaps we should establish a library of anonymous poor practice examples? I used years ago to receive a magazine highlighting every significant electrical accident in the UK Electricity Supply Industry, with an explanation of the causes, which became part of the training syllabus as appropriate, perhaps becoming a simulated scenario. In the same way, aviation accidents are incorporated into Pilot Training usually in simulators. Engineers working with “established technology” often can’t afford to crash or even hamper the productivity of sometimes immensely valuable assets, yet they are assumed to be of “lower” IEng competence, a “Technologist” or a “Technician”. De-facto an academic semester of calculus is held to have more value than many thousands of hours of relevant vocational practice.

I have made constructive suggestions in these forums for a better approach that I won’t repeat here, but if we can build greater credibility outside our existing strongholds, more stakeholders would come to see being a registrant as a desirable and accurate quality mark, rather than a historic qualification or “honorific” that it is now. We gain nothing by undermining our premium CEng brand and those who govern the profession wouldn’t dare to offend anyway, since “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” is poised with pen (or keyboard) in hand. I can’t see a valid argument for statutory protection of the term engineer, but I want to support something stronger than we have. Unfortunately, during the last ten years when I have been more actively involved, my enthusiasm on the basis of our current proposition has cooled considerably. I’m sorry to say that I have found the arguments put forward by some CEng or on their behalf, very poor, naively “entitled” and unbecoming of someone “at the top” of their profession.

If Bob or anyone else for that matter identifies a risk in their domain, then there is nothing to prevent them from identifying the relevant stakeholders and building a case for change. To make a broad based strategic argument that all “engineers” should be “licensed” is much more difficult and I would take a lot of persuading. We have successfully persuaded some regulators, major employers and others to value professional registration as an element of due diligence and risk management. Unfortunately as I see it, good quality and well thought out arguments around “who should do what” are undermined by those who assume intellectual superiority and entitlement. As I see it engineers should mainly be practical and pragmatic users of science, not "watered down" scientists. https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/nov/21/university-engineering-departments-overalls-research
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