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 6082 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.

  • 0
    Would licensing take into account criminal convictions not directly related to engineering? For example, would an engineer be refused a licence, or have it revoked, because they were jailed for burglary?


    Engineering potentially provides an opportunity for ex-cons to hold a quality career because rarely are enhanced DBS checks carried out and unlike medical careers there are no stingy rules imposed by professional societies.
  • 0
    Some readers may be aware of the US licencing laws for Professional Engineers, and the ability to prosecute those that claim to do engineering.


    This has been taken to extremes in some cases where legitimate issues have been prosecuted.


    Do have a read of (once you get past the scandal sheet style..;-)  https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/02/oregon_engineer_license_laws/ and https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/08/oregon_will_let_engineer_refer_to_himself_as_engineer/ and https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/29/engineer_fined_for_talking_about_math/ to see how ridiculous it can get when the blunt end of the law is applied.


    There are many cases in the states of Engineers being fired (at will) because they won't sign the formal documentation because something is wrong. They are simply employed as a rubber stamp engineer, so its all a bit more complicated.


    --

    Philip
  • 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.
  • 0

    Mehmood Birdi:

    Whenever I hear CEng members saying they are [required|entitled|privileged] to sign off engineering designs as a badge of recognition, I am surprised they do not add that they do it for free and do not carry indemnity insurance in case something were to go wrong; because if something were to go wrong, the company would take financial responsibility and not the CEng. Oh and how much does it cost a company to promote they employ CEngs and get them to sign off design work? The answer is the same amount it cost to pay off a CEng annual subscription. A case of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.




    Hi Mehmood,


    Always good to hear from you smiley But, errrr...what??? Ok, I suppose there are CEngs who say this, but no, that's not the idea at all, it's the other way around. In any organisation dealing with critical systems (however you like to define that) there need to be some people who "have technical accountability for complex systems with significant levels of risk" - to quote UKSpec - who sign them off. The organisation needs to justify why these staff are competent to be final signatories, which will be because of their experience, expertise, and - if the organisation has any sense - their personal attributes such as openness, honesty and integrity. This competence will need to be demonstrable to third parties. In some industries, such as Roy P's and mine of rail, this will be during the introduction of the engineering, in others it may only be when things go wrong. These signatories are acting on behalf of the company, so the company needs to do everything it can to make sure they are not liable to land it in the lurch. Ok, if the signatory is deliberately negligent then in most countries they will be personally liable, but the more likely scenario is that they just make a human mistake, perhaps through lack of experience or knowledge, and then the company has to explain why they were put in that position.


    So pity the poor company who has to appoint final signatories (if you try doing the final signatory role by committee nothing ever gets done!) and somehow has to limit its risk of appointing the wrong people. And then there's external assessors like me who have to go in and check that these final signatories are competent to sign what they're signing. How are we supposed to judge that? If only there was a third party accreditation service that gave at least some level of assurance that signatories had at least some level of demonstrated professional awareness and competence...but there is, it's called professional registration! Phew, that's a bit of luck smiley


    Now, as I always say, it's only one part of the story (and actually quite a minor part), if I'm assessing a safety case I'm not going to believe that the signatory is competent just because they are CEng. I'll want to see a CV summary that shows why they are competent to that level in that particular field. But seeing CEng (or, depending on what I'm assessing IEng or EngTech) does save me some digging into their general level of engineering competence, someone's done that bit for me.


    However, if the signatory in question doesn't have a registration status - as they often don't - ok, we just need to see the same evidence (pretty much) that they would have submitted for professional registration. 


    If you like, CEng etc is all just a way of saving us all wasted repeated effort and hence saving tax payers or customers money. But it only reflects the status that person had already - you can't get CEng unless you can show you are already working at CEng level! 

     




    Happy New Year! devil



    And to you! laugh


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • 0
    One UK specific aspect which I don't think has been raised in this thread yet - I get the impression that those business leaders who successfully lobbied for Brexit generally seem to be in favour of the reduction of statutory regulation of their businesses (hence their stance). If this is the case, then I would imagine that after the UK leaves the EU we are likely to see substantial lobbying against any proposed introduction of licensing, and equally I wouldn't be surprised to see powerful lobbying against the level of licensing and regulation we already have.


    As someone who is "licensed" (although not using that term) to carry out engineering assessments against a specific EU regulation (which we expect to initially carry on as a UK regulation) I am watching such discussions with interest!


    So for those who believe extensive licencing of engineering should be introduced to the UK, there's another potential factor to consider. As a test case, how would you persuade (say) James Dyson that his engineers could only practice if they were licensed by a third party? if you can't do that, my feeling is that - rightly or wrongly - you probably won't succeed.


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • 0
    Andy,

    spot on, as usual, in both posts. Just to fit my post about indemnity insurance in with yours, that's what i was trying to say - that it ultimately falls to the organisation to take accountability, hence the requirement to select appropriately and to manage competence. In the case of contract workers they are able to mitigate this to some degree by requiring PI and placing the management of competence in the contractor, but then they have to double check that the competence offered is sufficient and relevant. As you say, that is either by conducting something very similar to the C.Eng/I.Eng registration process (I'm not including Eng Tech as I feel it would be unreasonable to place the burden of sign-off on an engineering technician) and that effort is alleviated if the candidate is registered. Incidentally, picking up Andy's other point in here, I describe it as a burden (albeit a reasonable one for a professional engineer) rather than a badge. Naturally, if you do carry that burden and do it well, it's completely reasonable to claim credit, whether you're registered or not. Not everyone is happy to carry that burden, hence it's important to make the distinction as it would be perilous to place that burden on somebody who is not happy to carry it.

    But relevance of competence and knowledge of the industry context, the application requirements and the issues of criticality still require confirmation and this is what a system such as the authority to work that I described needs to address. Unfortunately, in less regulated sectors/scenarios, i think this is all too often missing. It wasn't always present in rail, and it took a series of disasters, worst of which was Clapham Junction, to push the industry down that path.

    And yes, that risk in Brexit is very worrying.

    So I think that, even if the detail was a little uncertain, Mehmood's fundamental point was will made, that getting the approach used by industry/responsible organisations right needs way more action before licencing becomes the central issue in need of attention. - it would be very dangerous to see it as a panacea for all ills until and unless there is suitable regulation (even if it's self regulation) in place for it to plug into.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Licensing Engineers in the UK is internal to the UK. 

    What I can add to the discussion is what I see and my opinion from the USA.

    I think If such licensing will be mandated and regulated I'm sure that the industry leaders may demand, oppose, lobby and act to balance such requirements

    with what in the US is called Industrial Exemption. Businesses see restrictions in hiring and economic cost to the industry so

    a balance is needed in order to ensure public safety without hurting the local economy.


    One example: licensing can be motivated by the self-interest.

    There can be significant economic and social benefits to the licensee that result from attaching a mandatory license to an occupation.


    In the US Kleiner of the University of Minnesota, in a study conducted with Alan B. Krueger, concluded that requiring a licensing for an occupation can increase salaries by as much as fifteen percent. 

    Not long ago in the US a Governor of a Midwestern state was approached by representatives of a particular trade anxious to enlist the Governor’s support in securing passage of legislation to license their trade. “Governor,” the representative said, “passage of this licensing act will ensure that only qualified people will practice this occupation; it will eliminate charlatans, incompetents or frauds; and it will thereby protect the safety and welfare of the people of this state.” The Governor, from long experience, was somewhat skeptical. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “are you concerned with advancing the health, safety, and welfare of the people under the police powers of this state, or are you primarily interested in creating a monopoly situation to eliminate competition and raise prices?” The spokesman for the occupational group smiled and said, “Governor, we’re interested in a little of each.”


    Even with monetary benefits to be reaped from licensing, US engineers have been surprisingly ambivalent toward licensing, if not outright rejecting of it. In a striking enigma, an overwhelming majority of engineers— one study shows somewhere around eighty percent —do not pursue licensing.


    MW
  • 0
    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



  • 0

    Roy Bowdler:


    De-facto an academic semester of calculus is held to have more value than many thousands of hours of relevant vocational practice. 

     


    Roy,

    I share your frustration. As someone who has always done well at maths and having had no problems with calculus either at school or university, I can confirm that it has been next to useless to me compared to the relevant hours of experience I need to be a good engineer. I also fully support your comment that "Where the risk is modest it can be carried by an individual or SME" and (unusually) disagree with the other Roy (Pemberton) where he says "I'm not including Eng Tech as I feel it would be unreasonable to place the burden of sign-off on an engineering technician". If the sign off is within the expertise and capability of Eng Tech then why can't he/she sign it off? As an example I wouldn't expect to need a CEng to sign off a BS7671 installation (and many CEng will probably not have the right experience to do so - myself included, having always dealt with different regulations). It is always a case of having an appropriate individual taking the responsibility.

    Alasdair

  • 0
    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

Community Rules & Guidelines