Time for licenced Engineers?

Hi Roy,


Very interesting post (and, as a side point, the first time I've seen an explanation of "engineering technologist" that makes sense to me!)


As an additional thought to provoke discussion, in the UK rail industry up to the 2000s there was the usual "who is at fault"/"who can we prosecute" investigation following rail accidents, which, particularly at the height of privatisation, inevitably lead to hiding, closed doors, and closed mouths which didn't in the long term help anyone. The system in place now is, broadly, that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch exists to determine the root causes of accidents, not to apportion blame. This "carrot" of working together to improve standards seems to be far more effective at raising standards than the previous "stick" of (to put it VERY simplistically) threatening prosecution of individuals and companies. Reading through RAIB reports it is noticeable that accidents due to actual individual negligence are very rare, more usual is for accidents to occur due to weaknesses in processes (particularly at the boundaries between different organisations). Accidents due to lack of competence, which I guess would be what licensing would attempt to address, lie somewhere in the middle. But my impression from the RAIB reports is that such lack of competence tends to be specific rather than general - someone is competent in their general role, but does not have competence in a very specific aspect. Common examples relate to particular operational arrangements, and - most importantly - typically the staff involved "don't know what they don't know", it's not that they haven't bothered to learn the arrangements, they simply don't know such arrangements exist. Which again typically becomes an organisational process problem. Which in turn why those of us who work in safety assurance spend far more time looking at processes than we do at individual competences.


The RAIB reports are publicly available, and if someone wants a nice Master's project then using them as a case study to research the question "would licensing all engineering roles improve public safety - a case study from the rail industry" then it would be very interesting to see the outcome. (I'm quite serious, it really would make an excellent basis for such a project. If anyone does do it please send me a copy of your dissertation!)


The PEI / Trade Union point is very interesting. Personally I think this is a very useful distinction - trying to regulate the profession and represent your members would be almost bound to lead to occasional conflicts of interest. I think we do have a problem in that many members do see the PEIs as trade unions, hence the frustration of "why aren't the PEIs pushing for protection of the 'engineers' title so we can all earn more money?" - they're not because that's absolutely not their role! I suppose I picked this up from my father, who was a very active union member from the 1930s, and was always very clear that his roles in NALGO (now UNISON) were quite separate to his membership (and CEng) with the Institute of Fuel.


So I suppose the PEIs role in this debate would depend on why licensed engineer status was being sought. If it is is to improve individuals "status", pay, or to protect jobs then that's nothing to do with the PEIs (there's a difference between the status of the professional registration titles, which is a PEI/EC problem, and the status of individual engineers which is a TU problem). But if there's evidence that licensed engineer status would provide a safer environment for society then the PEIs could well have a role in the discussion.


Cheers,


Andy

Hi Roy,


Very interesting post (and, as a side point, the first time I've seen an explanation of "engineering technologist" that makes sense to me!)


As an additional thought to provoke discussion, in the UK rail industry up to the 2000s there was the usual "who is at fault"/"who can we prosecute" investigation following rail accidents, which, particularly at the height of privatisation, inevitably lead to hiding, closed doors, and closed mouths which didn't in the long term help anyone. The system in place now is, broadly, that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch exists to determine the root causes of accidents, not to apportion blame. This "carrot" of working together to improve standards seems to be far more effective at raising standards than the previous "stick" of (to put it VERY simplistically) threatening prosecution of individuals and companies. Reading through RAIB reports it is noticeable that accidents due to actual individual negligence are very rare, more usual is for accidents to occur due to weaknesses in processes (particularly at the boundaries between different organisations). Accidents due to lack of competence, which I guess would be what licensing would attempt to address, lie somewhere in the middle. But my impression from the RAIB reports is that such lack of competence tends to be specific rather than general - someone is competent in their general role, but does not have competence in a very specific aspect. Common examples relate to particular operational arrangements, and - most importantly - typically the staff involved "don't know what they don't know", it's not that they haven't bothered to learn the arrangements, they simply don't know such arrangements exist. Which again typically becomes an organisational process problem. Which in turn why those of us who work in safety assurance spend far more time looking at processes than we do at individual competences.


The RAIB reports are publicly available, and if someone wants a nice Master's project then using them as a case study to research the question "would licensing all engineering roles improve public safety - a case study from the rail industry" then it would be very interesting to see the outcome. (I'm quite serious, it really would make an excellent basis for such a project. If anyone does do it please send me a copy of your dissertation!)


The PEI / Trade Union point is very interesting. Personally I think this is a very useful distinction - trying to regulate the profession and represent your members would be almost bound to lead to occasional conflicts of interest. I think we do have a problem in that many members do see the PEIs as trade unions, hence the frustration of "why aren't the PEIs pushing for protection of the 'engineers' title so we can all earn more money?" - they're not because that's absolutely not their role! I suppose I picked this up from my father, who was a very active union member from the 1930s, and was always very clear that his roles in NALGO (now UNISON) were quite separate to his membership (and CEng) with the Institute of Fuel.


So I suppose the PEIs role in this debate would depend on why licensed engineer status was being sought. If it is is to improve individuals "status", pay, or to protect jobs then that's nothing to do with the PEIs (there's a difference between the status of the professional registration titles, which is a PEI/EC problem, and the status of individual engineers which is a TU problem). But if there's evidence that licensed engineer status would provide a safer environment for society then the PEIs could well have a role in the discussion.


Cheers,


Andy