Is it possible to remain a CEng if IET membership is ended?

MIET is essential to gain and retain the CEng or IEng. Not possible to pay the fee directly to EC but through the IET.

What else???

OK, that's what I suspected.  Thanks.

What are your reasons for not renewing your IET membership / association? Is it the cost / affordability? Anything that the IET could do to change your mind?

I / we went down a very similar path with regards to retaining CEng and MIET membership at minimal cost for retired members and the introduction of a CEng retired status.


The answers / justifcations that were returned for not doing so were:


From the Engineering Council:  CEng is for those people paractising engineering and ARE FULLY COMPLIANT with CPD etc. etc.


From the IET: For retired IET members full CPD is not required and reading the IET magazine and attending a lecture will suffice.

 

Neither of these two positions (IMHO) are consistent with each other.


For many retired IET members, despite the 50% fees, the expediture is too much to justify.  Last time I checked reduced fees were for those with incomes below £25K.  Take tax off, etc. then for many the fees are not justified when other more important living and family expenses are taken into account.

 

So now we have many respected ex. Chartered Enigineers who could still represent the industry with some "authority" to the public, kids in schools, etc. and did do/would do.  We also have a large number of retired members who can afford, get to retain their post nominals, not comply with the EC's full CPD requirements and possibly don't promote engineering.

 

A total shame and real loss of opportunity by the profession.


I've not been a paid up member since January 2016.  I retired in 2009 so from 2009 to 2015 spent over £800 in reduced fees for a magazine and the right to use CEng.  I was availabe to speak to pupils at my old school about our profession.  2016 would see my pension just exceed £25K, the reduced fees end and since then I've saved over £400.  

 

Have I missed anything.. No in all honesty.  To keep modestly technically current I read the IET magazine and following engineering technology online.

The Engineering Council's Policy Statement on CPD states:   "Professionally active registrants who persistently do not respond to or engage with requests for CPD records from a Licensed Member risk removal from the Engineering Council Register".  The IET's Rules of Conduct state:   "Members shall keep their knowledge and skills up-to-date through planned professional development and seek to broaden and deepen that knowledge throughout their working life".  The key is being Professionally Active.  From the IET's point of view, we expect Retired members who act as Volunteers within the IET to undertake 30 hours CPD and we have a reduced CPD requirement of 10 hours per annum for others who wish to remain engaged, but if you are fully retired, you can retain your Professional Registration without undertaking any CPD.

Quote "From the IET's point of view, we expect Retired members who act as Volunteers within the IET to undertake 30 hours CPD and we have a reduced CPD requirement of 10 hours per annum for others who wish to remain engaged, but if you are fully retired, you can retain your Professional Registration without undertaking any CPD."


Well the last bit "but if you are fully retired, you can retain your Professional Registration without undertaking any CPD" is not what the EC council told me in writing.  And the last time I was engaged in this discussion with the IET they expected retired members to do "minimal" CPD as an mentioned and not NO CPD.

 

However CPD IS NOT the issue/my point.  It is the expense of maintaining full membership and CEng status for no effectively little or no return other than being able to use post nominals.  I easly exceed CPD critera, am still following technology and engineering.  I won an kept my wings for over 40 years but now I and others are "nobodies" in the eyes of the profession.  What a waste of talent, experience etc. for what is in effect just now a revenue issue for the EC and IET.  Had a little "professional" thought gone into my suggestion, a little bit of negotiation, etc. then others like me would have felt wanted, been able to stay registered, been qualified to enguage with the public etc. without going down the begging / hard times route.


Interestingly as I'm still within my 3 year absence limit I can next year pay my dues to the IET and EC and be back onboard with no CPD during the three years.  Could play the game of 3 off, one year on, 3 years off.  Not a professional attitude but well within the rules

Referring to the post title, I don’t quite understand why one don’t want to pay or renew the membership fee to an engineering institute. It is no a norm to pay membership fee to a society in UK where you are registered with?


And looking at IET membership fee at the moment, I don’t think that is excessive. IET have this reduced fee and it reduce almost to 50% for retired member.

If one says the fee is expensive then at what kind of level the fee is seen to be reasonable? Maybe whoever feel that way can suggest the reasonable amount to be proposed to IET. Of course, if one suggests FOC then that is ridiculous.


We must remember any institution or society cannot be self-sustain without any member funding. IET need fund to operate, and one of the source of funding is from membership fee.

Whether the talent is feel wasted, don’t be appreciated, felt unwanted, to me this is just a personal issue. 

Keeping professional registration when retired is an interesting topic, I can very much see two sides to this. I can see that if I am ever lucky enough to retire I would want to retain the professional status that I have held for many years now. On the other hand, the whole point of CEng, and the reason we have to keep renewing it every year, is to indicate to third parties that we are assessed as being currently competent to make significant engineering judgements. I suspect that (say) two years after retirement it is likely - if I'm still compos mentis - I will be undertaking lots of CPD, but there's a difference between increasing one's skills in the technology of guitars and duck houses (and maybe finally building and developing my Theremin!) and still being competent to sign off a significant engineering project. Obviously this is going to be different for all individuals after official "retirement", some stay as directors of several engineering companies, some play golf and go on cruises (and why not?). Many stay somewhere in the middle, technically interested but no longer spending their lives engineering at CEng level.


I seem to remember someone (possibly me!) put forward a proposal on these forums some years back that there should be a CEng (Retd.) or similar designation, personally if I get to that point I would be very happy with that.


It's a knotty problem, and no answer is going to please everyone.


Cheers,


Andy

Yung Lai:

I don’t quite understand why one don’t want to pay or renew the membership fee to an engineering institute.

 

1. Compared to other professional fields (medicine, law, accountancy) the total cost is cheap. Maybe that's why the services are not being delivered that some members want, we are getting what we pay for!

• If I was unhappy with how the IET was run I would stand for council to try to change it rather than leave.

But I have to admit that I am biased as I have never had to pay my fees myself (my employers have always paid them). Certainly if I did have to pay them myself I would be thinking hard about whether they offer useful value to me, and probably finding any way possible to reduce them. Just as, now that I have to pay my own CMgr fees, I pay them through the IET because it is cheaper.


So I can certainly see multiple reasons why anyone would question paying IET on top of EC fees. And actually if you are CEng then you should be questioning all business costs and value, it's part of having a wider view beyond pure technical matters. But equally, I completely agree with you that we need to think in addition about the wider value that the IET offers to the engineering community, and whether we want to support that; again, that falls into the "E" section of the CEng competences.

Well said, Andy.

The original question was whether it is possible to leave the IET and pay CEng fees directly to the Engineering Council UK (ECUK) to which the simple answer is "No."

However to give more meaningful advice we need to know more of the background. My feelings are as follows.

1. If it is felt the IET is not providing value or is not being run well, I agree with Andy that taking a more proactive part and changing from the inside is best, but this is not always practical due to location or other commitments. Another alternative could be to become a member of another PEI and then transfer the CEng payment to ECUK to the second PEI, after which the membership of the IET can be allowed to lapse without losing CEng.

2. If it is a matter of cost, the above solution may be an option, but best of luck finding a PEI which has lower fees than IET. I am a member of two PEIs and the second one, probably due to having a smaller membership, charges higher fees.

On the comments about CEng and retirement, the value will depend on your involvement in engineering post retirement. I know a number of engineers who are retired but doing more Chartered Engineer level work now than many CEng still in employment. As a balance, I know a number of retired CEng who have decided to drop out of engineering and be active elsewhere. Some of these have dropped their CEng status, but not all.

Regards,

Alasdair